


Chasing Happiness

by Soann



Series: Healing isn't a linear path [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Canon Compliant, Don’t copy to another site, I hope my English is alright it's not my first language, Multi, as in there's nothing in canon denying that this is could happen, johan and yubel learn to get along, some other characters appear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21919507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soann/pseuds/Soann
Summary: This story comes after Missing PiecesNow that Johan travels with Judai, he and Yubel need to learn how to get along. They learn a lot about each other and about the man they love.Johan P.O.V in chapter 1 since it was the only one that wasn't in missing pieces.There is darker stuff mentioned in chapter 2 (and 3), but nothing deserving a warning I believe.
Relationships: Johan Andersen | Jesse Anderson/Yubel, Johan Andersen | Jesse Anderson/Yubel/Yuuki Juudai | Jaden Yuki, Johan Andersen | Jesse Anderson/Yuuki Juudai | Jaden Yuki, Yubel/Yuuki Juudai | Jaden Yuki
Series: Healing isn't a linear path [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578655
Comments: 27
Kudos: 111





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welp this happened.  
> This chapter doesn't really have plot, it's a lot like Missing Pieces was, except Johan's POV and learning more about everyone. Dealing with squeletons in the closet, being cute, getting closer, and so on.  
> There are some of my favourite theories here, again.  
> I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> EDIT: I have no idea how but I had missed how Yubel used Mystical Space Typhoon, so I edited it! Thanks for notifying me about it!

Johan had fallen for Judai pretty quickly.

He had always been interested in that boy he had heard about, who could see and talk to spirits the way he did, and honestly, when he finally got to meet him, he wasn't disappointed.

Judai was sweet and kind and a happy soul with a naive, unguarded worldview that could make him sound callous sometimes, even though he never meant anything bad. And seriously, he was too cute for his own good.

So Johan had fallen in a few days.

His only, very very small, disappointment was that while Judai had really deep bonds with his spirits, none barred Hane Kuriboh seemed that close to him. Mostly they seemed to see him as their master, as their god even when the boy treated them as friends. Sure, he created the neo spacians, so in a way he was some kind of god to them, but their mostly silent obedience had still seemed much colder than the warmth Johan's family gave him.

It was weird, he remembered thinking, for such a warm boy to not be as pampered by his spirits as Johan was, he expected more passion and outspoken love from them.

When he met Yubel and learnt who they were he couldn't help but think _'Oh! So that's where it all was.'_

They’ve been traveling and living together for a while, now. There are times when he wakes up at night and sees one of Judai's heroes watching over him, a silent protector, ready to defend their king, their god, as he sleeps, vulnerable.

Sometimes he remembers that always being on high alert like that used to be Yubel's job and still was in a way.

Sometimes he wonders how paranoid having to protect your whole world and still losing him can make you and if he'd turn insane.

Johan doesn't like Yubel. It's not really a choice, they took his body, ripped his soul away from it and used his family against their wishes. He kind of had to hate them even if they weren't his rival in love. But there are two issues that came with it.

The first is Judai. Judai loves Yubel as much as he loves Johan, and even more important, the two are forever united now, you can't have one without the other. And it's impossible to get mad at Judai for that, because he saved them all.

Even the villain.

The hero saves the villain thanks to the power of love. It's the perfect fairy tale ending if you forget the terrible nightmares, the awful guilt and the fact that Judai will now probably outlive all of his friends.

He can be a little sad that Judai had to give up on his ability to choose, that it was either Johan could stand Yubel's presence or Johan and Judai wouldn't meet again. He wonders if Judai would have chosen him if it had come to that. The very small insecure part of him that he didn't even know existed before that dimensional trainwreck sometimes likes to ask him what he is, really, in front of a bond deep enough that it lasted millenia.

Well he is the one Judai loves so much that even jealous Yubel would rather get along with him than hurt Judai by separating them, so how's that for insecurity, huh?

And the second reason?

The second issue, as awful as it was, was that he understood Yubel.

He was both possessive and protective after all, sharing was never one of his strong points. If it was the only way to protect someone he cared for, he would not hesitate to become violent either, especially if he felt someone had hurt them. And if he lost someone he loved? The simple thought was as unbearable as that week, waiting for Judai to come back (hoping, praying to all that was powerful that he and his family were okay when everyone around him kept saying Judai was dead), had been.

Yubel was like a dark mirror, showing him all he could become in all its terrifying yet alluring glory. And it made it impossible to hate them.

It had been easier when they had just been a villain who trapped them on another dimension and then took over his body, and when Judai had saved him with fury on his face and eyes that didn’t sparkle as much as before.

It became harder when Shou explained to him what they had learnt while he was away, who Yubel was to Judai and how they had become distorted by some terrible force that apparently they had Judai to thank for getting rid of. It became even harder when Judai came back with an explanation, a guest in his soul, a broken teary smile and eyes full of regret for many things, but not for forgiving Yubel.

The love of Johan's life had to be the reincarnation of someone already promised to someone else. Figures.

Johan knows Judai loves him. It's what makes the situation so complicated after all. Imagine loving someone with all you have. Then amnesia happen and you forget them. Then you fall for someone else that you love just as much. And then you remember that person you loved so much and still do.

How do you choose when both of your loves are infinitely true?

Johan made pretty quickly the decision that he'd have to learn how to share. Part of him just refused to let go of that boy who looked so tired during their second to last duel but still managed to silently understand him, laugh with him and then save the world in the same day.

Part of him, also, refused to let Yubel get an absolute victory. They'd get Judai forever, continuously, the lucky jerk, they could at least learn to share for a while.

And so they did.

It’s spring and Johan looks at Judai sleeping on the grass, Pharaoh purring on his stomach, in that park where they decided to lay down for a while. He always sleeps better during the day, when there's life bustling around. So Johan waits, looking at him fondly, wondering if Yubel will come.

They have made their presence more obvious these days, since Judai came to this after-tournament party with a mysterious smile and a red mist that disappears everytime Johan tries to look at it. Johan thinks it's because they're becoming more comfortable with him.

The crystal beasts shift and Johan smiles, raising his eyes towards the winged fiend.

"Hey." He says.

They nod quietly.

"So he's having a peaceful sleep?" He murmurs.

They finally look at him, annoyed, but if they really didn't want his company, they wouldn't be here.

"It's always better during the day, when there's noise."

No wonder he slept so much during class. Sometimes he wonders why Judai never told anyone about his difficulties to sleep when it’s dark and silent and instead accepted to be seen as a lazy bum by everyone around him.

"I also suppose creatures of darkness are stronger during the night."

Yubel smirks at him and the expression is challenging, but not unkind.

"That we are." Is all they say.

They stay silent then, it's not tense. Amethyst starts clamoring for his attention while Ruby is chasing Hane Kuriboh. The rest of his family is chattering inanely under the sun.

It's a nice day, Johan feels like he could stay like this forever.

"You should materialize Yubel more."

Judai stops himself in the middle of his bite and looks at him, puzzled. They were having dinner around a campfire, and Johan is dirty because today's spirit saving included a lot of crawling in the dirt, and Yubel wouldn't stop snarking at them so Johan is getting his sweet little revenge.

"Excuse me?"

"You know? In general. They could help us during work, and also the others could properly meet them? It's kind of unfair that I'm the only one who gets the honour of hearing their beautiful voices."

Judai is hesitating but there's a small smirk on his face and Johan can almost hear Yubel protest in his head.

"I'll work on it," he promises, "they're powerful after all, it might be a lot of effort for few results, especially if they don't want to cooperate."

When Judai finally tries to summon Yubel in the physical world, they are very cooperative.

"What should we watch?" Johan asks scrolling through the list of movies they can rent in the hotel room he insisted they took for once (and it was really hard to find one that accepted cats). "There are some action flicks, dramas, a few horror ones… oh, didn't you have that one in your Osiris room?"

At the corner of his eye he barely sees Judai's flinch. The man gives him a fake smile.

"Ah, yes I did… Not that one, please."

Johan doesn't know the movie, it's a Japanese romance where a widowed family mother played by an actress he thinks used to be famous finds love again in a lonely piano player. It never sounded like something Judai enjoyed watching or that could provoke such a reaction.

Over Judai's shoulder, Yubel shakes their head, silently telling him not to ask any question.

So Johan stays silent and starts a horror movie.

It felt like the best of decisions when he starts pretending to be scared to get a hug. Feeling Judai tense during jump scares and then swear softly in some inhuman language is so much better than any movie.

"Say, do you remember how your duel with Yubel went?"

Judai is still thinking up ideas about how to help the kid they met earlier control when she does and when she doesn’t materialize her monsters. It’s not an issue he ever had to deal with so he’s a bit at a loss there, but he’s thinking it may have to do with her emotions, so he’s been jotting down ideas and really isn’t ready when Johan asks him that.

“Where does that come from?” he asks.

“Well, I only got a glimpse of it, through Rainbow Dragon,” Johan admits, “I don’t know how you got there or even how it ended, just that after it you ended up fusing with them because it was the only way to save everyone. So I’ve been wondering.”

It’s morbid curiosity in a way. He hesitated for a long time but it’s been eating at him since Judai and Yubel came back with this new world in their sad eyes. He hopes this won’t bring back that many sorrowful memories, that the pain has dulled enough.

Judai puts down his notepad and smiles wistfully.

“It was a long one. Yubel used Magic Chronicle very early, do you know what it does?”

“Banish five cards from your deck, everytime the opponent uses a magic card you gain a chronicle counter, and during your main phase you can remove two counters to force your opponent to choose one of the banished cards and add it to your hand. Is that right?”

“Exactly. Of course, Super Polymerization was one of the five.”

Johan winces and shivers.

“Of course… It could make you hesitate before using magic cards I guess.”

Judai has a small self deprecating laugh.

“I use magic cards far too much for that to stop me. I figured I’d just have to defeat them before I had no choice but to pick Super Polymerization.”

His eyes fall as he starts slowly twirling his pen, lost in thoughts.

“The first card I chose was Zero Sprite. A few turns later, they used it to attack me twice.”

Johan opens his mouth, alarmed by his distant tone, but Judai keeps going.

“Then I chose Fiend Rose. They used it to stop themselves from being destroyed. And then I chose Mystical Space Typhoon. They used it to destroy Rainbow Veil. A few turns later, I chose Super Polymerization.”

At that moment, Johan stops breathing and it feels like the world tilted.

Judai has a small laugh again.

“They were so sure I would choose their other card too. They even had their whole next turn planned according to that card. And if I had chosen that other card, I have no doubt that they would have won.”

“But if you chose Super Polymerization…” Johan doesn’t recognize his own voice when he says that.

“They still won, in a way.” Judai admits and finally his eyes don’t look lost in the past anymore. “I used Spiritual fusion to choose the components of the fusion. And I chose our souls. Neither of us actually won the duel and it’s better that way.”

“You didn’t have a choice…” Johan mutters.

“I did. I had a few choices. Choose their last card and hope that I would draw a miracle. Use Spiritual Fusion to force them to summon a monster. Surrender. This was just the only bearable choice for me. My heart wasn’t in it anymore, I just couldn’t stand the idea of hurting them again, but I also knew I couldn’t let them destroy everything. They kept saying that if I loved them, I’d choose Super Polymerization and, well, I did...”

He smiles and it’s small but so sincere that it hurts Johan’s soul.

“I also figured there were situations much worse than spending the rest of eternity with a loyal companion I really loved and wanted to make up to.”

“Have you told the others?”

He shrugs.

“They think I either did it out of the goodness of my heart or because it was the only way to save the world. I don’t know if they’ll understand that I just wanted to stop hurting Yubel. I’m just selfish like that.”

“It’s not selfish.”

“Maybe…”

There comes that wistful smile again.

“I think about it sometimes, that’s how I remember it so well. None of the cards I chose for Yubel stopped them or even slowed them down. My choices helped them more than anything, as if I always chose the card that would be the most useful to them. I wonder if unconsciously, even then I just didn’t want to hurt them.”

Almost every day, Johan is reminded of how deep the bond the two share really is. During the bad ones, he wonders, once again how he can compete against that. During the good ones, that happen more and more frequently nowadays, he feels amazingly flattered to be seen as equal to that.

So he smiles back at Judai and takes his hands.

“I guess no matter how confused one can be, their heart knows what they really want.”

Judai frowns.

“Well I know what I’m going to tell that girl tomorrow.”

Johan laughs and it amazes him that Judai immediately thought about the person he’s trying to help this time, because no, Johan definitely didn’t start this conversation because he thought it would give Judai an answer. It was just a lucky conclusion.

“Do you think, deep inside herself, that girl wants to hurt people?”

“I think when we’re hurt, no matter how kind we are, there is always a little part of us that wants to lash out.”

Judai’s eyes look dead for a second and Johan knows he’s speaking from experience.

“I just hope that by being conscious of it, she’ll be able to control it better.”

Manjoume is a nice guy pretending to be a snobby asshole most of the time and Johan et Judai both know how much he loves the… unique… spirits he ended up favouring. So no matter how many time he says no, everytime they see him, Judai makes a point of asking him if he wants him to materialize the Ojamas. It’s almost a joke, now, they know he will say no anyway, but it’s basically the way they say ‘Hi’ and Johan is very guilty of wanting to see Manjoume’s angry face too. At least Johan has enough impulse control to stop himself from asking him loudly in front of cameras, something Judai would be very likely to actually do just to tease his self-proclaimed rival (Judai thought of a lot of people as his rivals during his academia days, but funnily enough, Manjoume is never the first one that comes to his mind). It’s one of these times when Asuka is actually right when she assures Johan is 85% of Judai’s impulse control. O’Brien often snorts when she does, because during missions, it really is the other way around. But in social situations, Judai never was one to think about discretion.

If Judai was acting shy, then you had a bad day Judai and really needed to leave him alone. Maybe ask him if he wanted hot chocolate and not much more.

But luckily, no one was in front of a camera this day. They actually weren’t even in public, Manjoume had basically requested Johan’s house to be the place he would rest at during a tournament in Norway, despite how far it was from the actual tournament location (Johan suspected he just wanted to check on Judai and he gave them a lot of time to come back home and prepare for his arrival so why not?).

“Why do you always ask me that? I never see you materialize any of your spirits!” the pro duellist rants.

Immediately, as if he was waiting for that answer, Judai’s eyes glowed with mirth and divine light. And suddenly, Yubel was standing in Johan’s living room. Not translucid as spirits were, but definitely real.

Manjoume jumps and Judai laughs. And Yubel playfully growls.

“Love, I quite enjoy being a silent observer, you know?” They say with a sultry voice.

“Yeah, but you’ve never been properly introduced, right? Yubel, meet Thunder, Thunder, meet my spiritual partner. You could say they’re my Ojama!”

Yubel looks offended and Manjoume even more so (on whose behalf, Johan isn’t sure), but Judai is smiling and it drowns out the sound of their arguing in Johan’s head.

He understands it. Manjoume is easy, he doesn’t have a special grudge against Yubel, never even really met them and is already used to spirits. He might even have already seen their spirit form hanging around Judai. So it’s easy to materialize Yubel and joke about 0 attack monsters with annoying effects. But it’s a first step and Johan is so proud that he never stops to wonder when he became so comfortable with Yubel’s presence that the idea of Judai materializing them to their friends is no longer a joke.

It’s morning so of course Judai is enjoying the sun and the birds singing by sleeping more soundly than he did all night, with this fading red mist lightly surrounding him. Yubel, however, is awake and doesn’t seem happy. Johan watches them think and wonders whether or not he should tell them he’s awake.

“Why that face?” he ends up saying.

Yubel doesn’t even bother arboring the pretend disgust they love showing him when it’s only the two of them. They just look at him and sigh and sit on a bed they can’t touch.

“I just wish I could stop affecting him with my nightmares.” they answer with clear frustration.

Which is honestly a first. Judai has nightmares, often, even if he says they are getting better. He has nightmares about Dark World, he has nightmares about his past life, he has nightmares about Darkness and about the pain he felt when he fused with Yubel and he also dreams of death and a numb thirst for power. Johan just didn’t know he also had Yubel’s nightmares. He didn’t even know Yubel had nightmares, even though it should have been obvious. Probably the same kind Judai has, he guesses.

“Do they happen often?” he asks softly.

“They’ve been getting better,” they answer mechanically, “but they’ve been going on since I escaped the Light so… A few years I’d say. I don’t think they’re ever completely getting away.”

Every so often, Johan hears Judai or Yubel say a thing that completely flips his perspective of things. He winces and thinks very much about biting his fist to stop himself from talking next time, even though Yubel doesn’t seem to mind.

“Even back then, my pain affected him. Did they tell you that he had nightmares for months? They tried everything before that woman ended up asking her husband if he knew about any surgery that could help.”

There’s scorn in their voice and Johan doesn’t know what it is for exactly. While the actions Judai’s parents took made things worse in the long run, they did what they could to help their son at that time. Yubel just sighs and shakes their head.

“And now our bond is even greater. He feels all I feel. So when I feel burning and lightning and all that torture, he feels it with me. I hate it.”

For a moment, Johan regrets that he doesn’t have Judai’s power to materialize Yubel, because dejected as they look, Johan just wants to hug them.

“It would be great if they could stop affecting you too.” he says gently.

Yubel shrugs, a surprisingly human move. They look sad.

“Off the table I’m afraid. I just hope Judai won’t start fearing all I fear too.”

“Is there anything I can do to help the both of you?”

There’s something soft in Yubel’s eyes when they look at him, something Johan isn’t sure he’s seen addressed to him before.

“Be there when we wake up, little light. Your very presence is helping because it’s the proof that not all light is meant to hurt us.”

Johan smiles, unsure. It seems very small, but yes, that, he can do.

Kenzan has his mouth open and his hand on the door when he sees Yubel in front of him. Judai is sheepishly saying hi behind them and Johan is waving joyously. The dinosaur enthusiast ends up closing the door and then opening it again, probably to check that it’s not a dream. Johan mock-complains that he’s being rude and Judai apologizes for dropping in unannounced and Kenzan is still looking at Yubel.

After making some confused hand gestures at Johan, he gives up and makes an aborted movement to shake Yubel’s hand.

“Hm, nice to meet you? Sir? Ma’am? What do I call you?”

Yubel smirks and their teeth are very pointy, but they put a hand on his shoulder and he _squeaks_ when he realizes they can touch him.

“You can call me Yubel, boy.”

It’s Kenzan, he’s always been better at adapting than the dinosaurs he loves so much, so it doesn’t take long for him to just take it in stride.

But Johan and Judai tease him for a long time.

There’s this movie again in their suggestions and Johan is suspecting that it’s following them. He actually mutters angrily at it. What even does happen in this movie that it has such great reviews, good enough to keep pushing it to the top?

Judai has a small laugh but it’s strained.

“At the end, the mother gives up on her newfound love and goes back to her devoting herself entirely to her children,” he answers, “it’s bittersweet but very grounded. Most people must have enjoyed the selflessness.”

“You’d think people would prefer a happy ending.”

“What would have been a happy ending, though? The mother abandoning her children to follow him? The children following them both despite how hectic that man’s life was, how it would destroy them and how he didn’t want them? All the answers were miserable.”

Johan tilts his head, curious.

“You seem to have thought about it a lot.”

Judai hums, eyes too empty.

“I try not to anymore,” he simply answers.

Johan thinks about kissing him on the cheek and simply choosing some action piece they can watch without thinking. He seriously thinks about it, but he also thinks it’s a conversation they can at least start.

“I don’t know what your issue with that movie is,” he admits, “but it seems to be bothering you. Is there anything I can do?”

Judai looks at him, surprised. He’s petting Pharaoh who seems at ease, on his lap.

“I don’t know… We never really talked about your parents.”

So it is a parental issue. Johan suspected as much, what with how Yubel seems to despise them and the peculiar subject of the movie.

“I’ve never known them,” Johan admits, “They gave me up for adoption when I was a baby. The Crystal Beasts are the only family I ever had.”

Judai simply accepts his answer with a nod and then smiles.

“I wonder what archetype you used before them, you never wanted to tell me.”

And Johan snorts because he has not used that deck in a while and he doesn’t want to. Yubel briefly appears to say that they can’t imagine him without the “gayest deck in the world” and it’s hard to deny it, but the Crystal Beasts start talking about how much better they are than Johan’s old deck and Daitokuji appears and talks about the similarities between Rainbow Dragon and the Bifrost from Norse Mythology, and the conversation becomes more fascinating than anything they could watch.

In the end, Judai doesn’t tell Johan what bothers him about the movie.

Fubuki is playing with shadows when they see him next, which makes Judai amazingly happy. He isn’t doing much with it, but he has perfect control over them and it’s more than he ever had. The way they twitch anxiously when Yubel appears betray his smile, but he tries very hard not to show how worried he is.

“It’s not their past,” he assures Johan later when Asuka and Yubel are getting introduced too, “it’s more that they look very imposing, you know?”

“Says the one who uses a Red Eyes deck.”

“Leave my beautiful dragon out of that. Anyway, do you think Judai can look more like them if he tries?”

“Probably, why?”

Fubuki smirks and suddenly Johan doesn’t know if he wants to know the answer.

“I said imposing. I never said it wasn’t sexy.”

Yep, definitely didn’t want the answer. And didn’t need to know that his own imagination could become so unable to leave him alone...

The boy’s name is Adam. He is bright and enthusiastic and not much older than they were when so many things started going wrong in their lives. Adam has hurt a classmate the other day, but no one knows how. The classmate says a monster appeared, Adam says he’s lying, no one really knows, but Adam admits pretty easily to them that, yes, it was a monster.

It’s just easier to throw another person under the bus than to admit how abnormal you might be. He is scared, of being labelled as crazy or worse, dangerous. He’s afraid that they would lock him up.

Johan cannot see any spirit hanging around the boy, but Judai is squinting and there seems to be something bothering him, the red mist around him swirling. He still introduces himself with a smile and asks Adam if he’d like some help.

Adam is overjoyed.

Adam is also incredibly curious and wants to know everything about them. What Judai can do (Oh boy, does Judai avoid that question), why Johan can see spirits but not materialize them even though it’s the opposite for Adam, how they met, how they discovered their powers, how they found him, why they were travelling together when one was famous and the other not, and why did they take a cat with them.

There’s a lot of avoiding the questions to be honest, the boy pouts but doesn’t insist every time one of them remind him gently that their private life is not his concern. Except for the last one that he really, really, won’t stop asking. Judai ends up telling him point blank that they travel with a cat because said cat ate the soul of his dead teacher and so he keeps him around for wise words, advice, and to learn new things.

Adam doesn’t believe him, of course, it’s always something when reality seems too weird for even magic people to believe.

Finally, Adam is powerful. He gets the hang of how to not materialize monsters incredibly fast and starts using spells and sometimes even traps with ease. Johan doesn’t see anything wrong with it, but Judai keeps reminding him that power is not control, which is a fair point.

It seems Judai’s guts aren’t satisfied when they, after a month, have to leave to another spirit saving mission with O’Brien (who always appears right where they are even if no one knows about it, Johan is starting to wonder if he microchipped them). So Judai makes Adam promise him he’ll practice his control and call him the moment something is wrong. Adam agrees wholeheartedly and they leave him happier than he ever was and more powerful than he would have ever been without them.

“You know,” Johan admits to Yubel one day, “I used to think you weren’t right for Judai because you thought you owned him, that he owed you his everything or something.”

They smother a cough in their claws, a dusty embarrassed red on their purplish skin.

“To be fair, I guess at my worst it kind of was this way.”

“Turns out you’re actually a traumatised love crazed overprotective spirit who was hanging on to the last thread of their sanity by torturing the one they loved.”

Yubel winces and there’s so much pain on their face he wants to take it back.

“I know I did a lot of wrong things, but…”

“Nah, no buts,” he interrupts them with a grimacing smile, “the terrible part about this is how I understand it. It sucks that I can both understand your reasoning and your desperation. I have been trying to summon any bitterness towards you for the past months and I literally can’t. You lost Judai once and got separated and isolated for millenia. When you found him again, you had lost part of your mind and became crazy protective. Then you lose him again, by his own hand this time, get tortured, go through hell, and when you find him again, finally, not only has the love of your life found other friends, but he seems to have forgotten about you. I think expecting you to act sane would be completely outlandish.”

Yubel still looks ashamed, something Johan understands too because understanding it doesn't make any of it okay. When Yubel take a shuddering breath, he wonders what they’re going to tell him.

“Do you know how Judai died the first time?”

And so Johan freezes. He turns to his boyfriend, who is happily humming while cooking, a headset firmly stuck on his head. Johan has the distinct feeling that this is a conversation the three of them should have, but at the same time, has no idea if he actually does want Judai to hear about it.

“I’m not sure I want to know.” He admits.

“It might be better if you didn’t, indeed.”

“... Does he know?”

“He does. I don’t know if he remembered or if it was my memories. But he does. Most of his nightmares are about his Supreme king stunt, then it’s about what I made Brron do or about what the Light did to me. But these days, I’ve been remembering it more and more.”

Yubel’s face is so, so full of despair when they keep going.

“He’s been good at not waking you from these, but he dreams about his death a lot and I think it’s because of me.”

They sigh and look at the boy they love so much with a fond sadness.

“When we wakes, it feels like drowning. There are days where I feel like I brought a lot more misery to him than anything else. You’re right in saying that I might be a bad fit for him, because even with that, I feel like I’d still choose to stay by him everytime.”

There are days where Johan also wonders if Judai and Yubel’s reunion might have been more peaceful if he hadn’t been there. He’s not sure about it, but it’s an irrational guilt that invades him sometimes, yet he knows he would never have done anything different.

Yubel sacrificed everything to protect the man they loved. It was just terrible luck that so many bad things happened afterwards.

He understands them so well, it’s terrifying.

“You really are a mirror,” he mutters.

Yubel hears him and looks at him with a face that says that they understand exactly what he means.

It’s almost comforting.

“Hi,” Yubel says to Jim, “I have two more eyes than you do.”

And Jim clearly didn’t hear them coming but he just smiles and says:

“Yeah, you do, and they look awesome!”

Judai is hiding behind Johan in embarrassment and muttering in his shoulder about how that wasn’t what they agreed on, Yubel, but Johan is laughing and holding his hand and Jim is always so happy to see them.

He and Yubel spend the whole night exchanging stories about old civilisations. Johan forgets most of it because of how much he loves the way the campfire is reflected in Judai’s eyes when he listen to them, fascinated.

When they leave, after a few days, he waves them goodbye.

“Take care, special boys, and you too my dear dragon.”

They always feel so much better after seeing Jim, it’s like they never realize how much they missed him until they see him again. Maybe they really should go see them more often, even Yubel seems pretty sad to have to leave.

Unfortunately, their responsibilities are pretty hard to shrug off.

Johan doesn’t have that many nightmares about Dark World. In his case there was a lot more fright than harm. If it wasn’t for how traumatising the issue was for Judai, he kind of thinks he could stop his experience as just joking about how he now had a kickass tight leather bondage outfit thanks to Yubel (and seriously, where did they find that thing? It was perfectly fit!). But on days where Judai’s eyes look dead and his smiles are empty, he knows the best thing he can do is give him hot chocolate, take him in his arms, and go back under the covers. Sometimes, Yubel add themselves to the mix and they just lay down, all together, being lazy and cozy and sipping sweet drinks while listening to something funny or interesting.

It’s on one of these days, as Johan wonders absently where the red mist that seems to always accompany him has gone once again, that Judai ends up picking at his arm muscles, as if bothered by something.

“How did you get these?” he almost whines.

Johan is at a loss, not sure what he means.

“I’m pretty sure I was born with them,” he says slowly.

There’s a petulant look on Judai’s face that he’d take anytime before the dull gold that had invaded his gaze this morning.

“Not your arms, you handsome idiot, I swear you didn’t have that much muscle when we met. Suddenly, you get possessed by the other love of my life and you get muscles. How the hell?”

Johan laughs and there’s a low rumble behind Judai that seems to imply that Yubel thinks it’s very funny too.

“Yubel didn’t use some evil weight lifting exercise to give me muscles if it makes you feel better.”

“Well I sure hope so, or they could have given me pointers during a certain time of my life.”

It’s a joke about something Judai never jokes about, and Johan will take that too before the usual self-loathing.

“Is it so hard to believe that I was always strong enough to lift you in the air?”

“You’ve seen your shirts! These things are supposed to be worn loosely! Now I’m realizing that they must have been super tight on you!”

“Is that jealousy in your voice?”

“Well it can be a little frustrating to be the only one who looks like a shrimp while the both of you are jacked.”

He’s pouting and it’s cute and Johan feels like a teenager again as he’s peppering kisses all over his face, overwhelmed with the wish to show him how much he loves him. Judai ends up sputtering and asking him to stop, laughing.

“You’re a beautiful shrimp,” Johan laughs, “and probably the strongest one here.”

“You are perfect the way you are,” Yubel adds, almost purring, “plus no one except you ever sees our oh so great muscles. You don’t look that smaller than the little light, you know?”

There’s a small tinge of sadness on Judai’s face, but it’s forgotten pretty soon when he just hides his face in Johan’s chest and gives a content little sigh.

It’s self-deprecation and fear, Johan guesses, he’s barely changed since his fusion with Yubel a few years ago. It might be a little early to say, but Judai doesn’t seem to grow old. At first, Johan just thought he would grow older at a slower pace. He’s starting to realize he might actually stay how he is forever.

Forever a young man might sound like a dream to some, but more like a nightmare to others.

But Judai is small and some days he looks so young and frail in a way that makes you forget how _strong_ and _ancient_ he really is.

Perhaps because two set of memories aren’t enough to replace a lonely life where one had to grow so fast that childhood almost seemed like a never attained ideal moment.

Johan sometimes thinks of an understaffed orphanage, and he can definitely understand the feeling.

“Judai,” Sho says very slowly when he reenters his living room to bring them pastries, “what do you have here?”

Judai, sitting between a very real Yubel’s legs, just raises his head, hiding the sparkle in his eyes as well as he can in fake confusion, and holds Johan’s hand up.

“You mean Johan?” he answers.

Needless to say, this meeting could have gone better.

They’re however still laughing about it when they leave, a full week later.

It’s the fourteenth night they’ve spent in a hotel since they started travelling and the eleventh that damn movie has been suggested to them. Johan is about to go to the next one without thinking when Yubel’s claw stops him. He turns towards Judai who nods, face neutral. The red mist isn’t there, once again.

“Let’s watch that tonight.”

It’s a sad movie. Well, more bittersweet than sad, really. The mother is a compelling character, very human, so selfless all of the time that it’s hard to root against her when she finds happiness even though her children suffer the consequences. She tries so hard to be perfect, but it’s too much. When her new lover suggests she temporarily puts them into foster homes, just for a few months so she can accompany him, you almost want her to say yes, despite knowing about the youngest’s night terrors that only her mother can calm down, and the oldest’s abandonment issues, and how one of the girls is getting bullied, and how the last one is only ungrateful because she’s not over their father’s death and feels ashamed, so ashamed that she doesn’t know how to simply talk to the most important person in her life, the last parent she has…

But when she refuses, there’s still this small sigh of relief in Johan’s chest, because as sad as it is for her that she is trapped in a society that judges her and makes her life hell, as sad as it is that she had to give up on some fleeting happiness, the only one she’s had recently, you know that the alternative would have been worse for everyone, full of pain on one side, and regret on the other.

“She didn’t do that in real life.” Judai suddenly says.

He hadn’t said a word the whole movie and Johan almost jumps when he hears him. He turns towards him, but Judai’s eyes are still fixated on the screen. Yubel has their arms over his shoulders, but they’re translucid, no longer real, as if he can’t focus enough to keep them in the physical world at the moment.

“Even after the tour, she didn’t come back. When it started being easier to do so without a scandal, she didn’t either. She went from fleeting love to fleeting love, chasing down happiness.”

A shuddering breath.

“And I stayed there. In that little town where everyone hated me and avoided me and feared me and I didn’t know _why._ ”

That’s a part about Judai’s amnesia that Johan tends to try not to think about. Yubel’s overprotectiveness hurt a lot of people at the time, but when Judai lost his memory, the other residents probably didn’t. They’d remember the creepy kid that you shouldn’t play with if you didn’t want to get hurt. And said kid would have no idea why no one would approach him.

Johan takes him in his arms and lays his head on his shoulder

“Is that why you used to watch this movie a lot?”

“She’s played by my mother. When I was a kid, it made it easier to pretend she came back.”

Johan tries very hard not to freeze.

“Misako Fuwa?” he tries to say in a neutral tone. “She’s your mother?”

It’s Yubel who nods.

“But… Your family name…”

“My father’s.”

“Oh. What about him?”

“Brain surgeon. Used to love studying if the production of certain chemicals helped seeing spirits in his spare time. I learnt years after he left that I was his favourite test subject. He lost all interest in me when forgetting about Yubel cut my connection to spirits entirely.”

It’s like a swarm of swords to the heart, but Johan doesn’t react much. He just hums softly.

“He’d have field day with us, now.”

Judai gives him a small chuckle and turns to face him, eyes bright, as if he had simply remembered a small sad thing that didn’t hold any importance anymore.

“That he would,” he agrees, “not that I’m interested in seeing him again.”

In the end, they watch a second movie and fall asleep, entangled in a mess of legs.

They wake up sore, cursing their uncomfortable sleeping position while Yubel laughs at them.

“Wait,” Edo asks calmly, “you mean O’Brien knew before me?”

“Yubel has been a very helpful ally whenever we join forces,” the young man answers in an even tone, “they were brought in the real world out of necessity.”

Kenzan and Manjoume are bragging about how they met Yubel before Edo did, and the spirit is currently drinking tea with Asuka and Jim. Rei is listening avidly to their conversation while Fubuki and Marufuji Ryou are talking in a dark corner. Sometimes, Ryou’s eyes meet Johan’s and there’s a hunger there, but it’s tamer than before. Johan has the distinct impression that the previous hell Kaiser doesn’t know who he’d like to duel more between him and Yubel, but that in any case, they’re both beaten by Judai who probably won’t duel any of them anyway.

Judai is listening to Sho’s chatter with a small smile and Johan knows he’s actually listening, not like the first times he summoned Yubel in the real world, where it seemed almost painful to him and he was unable to focus on anything else despite pretending to.

 _“Not only are they very powerful,”_ he said at the time, _“but our souls are one. Giving them a physical form is almost like separating my soul in half. It hurts. But once I master it, it’ll make it easier for me to maintain them in the physical world.”_

It’s a nice day. Johan loves everyone here and missed them.

He also can’t wait to leave and have Judai and Yubel for himself again.

Adam’s call comes too late.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Judai and Johan try to dismantle a trafficking ring.  
> It's a general godawful time for everyone.
> 
> Johan PoV again at first, but then it switches like in Missing Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to all those who kudoed and commented, I'm so happy some people enjoy this self-indulgent stuff!  
> This is probably the darkest chapter of the story. I don't describe anything because I felt it wasn't needed, the important aspect was the effect it has on the characters we're following.
> 
> TW: Death Thoughts (not suicidal or ideation, but still)

Any kid who is different or at least feels like they are will either crave normality, or search for others like them. Adam, in that aspect at least, was no different than every other kid. So when Judai and Johan left, he started looking.

And he found one. A girl, Lyn, pretty and nice, who could see auras and heal people. They had become friends, training together, becoming stronger, discovering their limits, living in their own little world and forgetting how, in a few months, they’d both be adults. Perhaps they had even shared a crush fed by mutual appreciation and gratefulness, happy for the company.

Two powerful but hard to control powers.

Turns out it wasn’t just bad luck that kept attracting world-ending events to Judai.

_“It’s Lyn”_ , they can hear Adam’s voice screaming in the phone, _“something has attacked her, I don’t know what it is, I think it stole her power!”_

They don’t know who Lyn is, but they leave immediately. Judai is not always as precise as he’d like with his shadow travels, but they still arrive close enough to where the call came from.

Adam is on the ground, eyes open but empty. Johan doesn’t know if he’s conscious or even alive, he’s unresponsive, that’s all he’s sure of.

He feels like he’s already seen the person standing behind Adam, or maybe it’s because every power hungry psycho looks the same to him. There’s no second glance, he barely even looks at him, too scared for the child who called for help but was too late.

Adam and Lyn didn’t know how to be subtle. And that guy wanted what they could do. And apparently, as he started calling upon creatures that Johan distinctly remembered being Adam’s to call upon, he found a way to get it.

Johan is shaking Adam, trying to get the shocked, limp kid to react. And that guy is standing and laughing and explaining that now no one can stop him and that he’s going to rule the world and get rid of anyone who ever wronged him or something like that. Johan has stopped listening the moment he’d seen the boy on the ground. There’s something terrified inside him, but also something really _really_ angry.

“What did you do to these kids?” he asks.

“They’re of no importance. Their only value was their powers. And I have them now. I can summon the most powerful monsters of the world, no one can stop me!”

Judai decks the guy in the nose.

Maybe it was terror and anger speaking but for a minute, Johan had almost forgotten about him. He had his deck ready to challenge him, rage in his teeth, but there were simpler ways to deal with assholes, just not ones Johan would have thought of using first and really, what did that say about their world.

It’s kind of delicious, the man is screaming on the ground, ordering his monsters to attack, the monsters he stole, and none, not a single one of them is moving. None here is crazy enough to attack the actual strongest monster spirit in the world if you discount the gods.

There’s a calm fury in Judai’s voice once he finally speaks, when the man stops screaming, realizing it actually won’t do anything for him.

“Who sent you?”

The guy is sputtering. He’s acting offended but there’s a tinge of fear in the air and then he’s charging at Judai. The hit misses, of course, but Judai has to turn around now and Johan can see his eyes, blazing gold.

Johan has never seen these eyes.

He never saw Judai when he acted as the Supreme King, he didn’t get to watch his duels against Yubel or Darkness, the closest he ever got was these dead eyes that signal bad days. Right now, though, Judai is furious and while his face is calm, the pure rage in his eyes is not something he has ever seen on his partner.

“You are not smart enough to find a way to steal powers on your own. Who sent you here?”

The man is snarling and tries to attack him again. There’s a Neos in his way this time and Judai narrows his eyes.

“I said: who sent you here?”

Neos is firmly holding the man in place. One after the other, the monsters he summoned disappear, as if listening to a silent order. The man is howling in anger, but fear starts to creep on his face and his voice shakes when he tells his very last monster, an Armored Bee, to attack before it disappears.

When he looks back at Judai, there are no more screams, just sheer terror.

“I can make you beg.” Judai says softly.

And the man breaks.

Johan understands why Judai terrifies people in that state, he knows he wouldn’t want to be on that side of him either, really (or maybe he would a treacherous part of him reminds him later, but in a very different context).

Right now, though, with Adam’s inert form in his arms, Amethyst trying to comfort him, he can’t find it in himself to be scared or even satisfied.

Adam and Lyn are still unconscious when they leave. Their parents are angry at them, Johan is kind of offended on their behalf (especially since they had no connection with Lyn), but Judai seems to take it as motivation. “They have parents who love them,” he told him, “that gives us more reasons to make sure it never happens again.”

Turns out there’s a whole black market thing, where they trade children with unusual powers. But this kind of market has a few flaws (other than the absolutely horrifying child trafficking part that doesn’t seem to be such a problem for these people). First of all, human merchandises are big and heavy and the transportation is expensive. Second of all, most people don’t really like the idea of relying on someone potentially more powerful than themselves.

For years, there had been scientists doing whatever they could to extract said powers from powered people and get them into someone else. It’s still a rare technology and getting a hand on it is nigh impossible.

Judai assures what they did with Adam and Lyn was imperfect. The man was a lot less powerful than Adam was and he didn’t seem able to heal his own nose. His theory is that for the moment, the machinery is extracting the power, but it slowly leaves the new individual that wasn’t meant to hold it.

Johan is a little lost.

Johan is also very terrified.

The idea of not being able to see his family because of this kind of thing is one of the most frightening things he can think of.

He asks Judai if he thinks the power comes back to its original owner. Judai hesitates, then shrugs with a sad look.

“I don’t know. If it does, it’s not fast, or they would be awake by now.”

It's one of these days where Johan thinks he's way over his head. But there's enough determination and anger in him that stopping here doesn't even come to mind.

Dismantling the network is hard. Judai tries to pretend it's something he's used to, but he thinks Johan sees through his easygoing face. It's a defence mechanism, he has to act as if he has everything over control or he's going to break. He can't close his eyes and see Adam and his girlfriend and think "they're dead because of you" or he's going to break.

He can't break.

Yubel is a comforting presence and they remind him that they're not dead, that they can be saved, and that it's the bad guys' fault, not his.

"What about Johan?" He ends up asking out loud.

There's a yawn behind him and Johan hugs him from behind, sleepily.

"What about me?"

"We're in permanent danger. If they discover what you can do, what will they do to you?"

Johan sighs.

"And what about you?"

Judai doesn't know what their enemies are doing, but they probably didn't test it on spirits.

"I'll be fine. I am Yubel."

"Half of you is, what about the other half?"

Johan still sounds sleepy, but there's real concern in his voice.

"The other half is darkness."

Johan smothers a laugh against his shoulder.

"Do you have to be so edgy?"

"What? It's true!"

Johan is still laughing but he's holding him tighter. And he’s right, it does sound edgy, Judai has to admit it. But it’s also reality.

"There's nothing they can do with my powers," Johan ends up saying, "it's useful to save and talk and befriend, not to fight and enslave and conquer."

Judai's however…

Judai knows that’s what’s Johan is thinking about. He turns and kisses him softly.

"I'm not getting hurt, don't worry."

"Judai, we both know your body is not what I'm worried about."

Judai doesn't want to break, not right now. He closes his eyes and sees Adam and flames and death and he can't hear Yubel's voice and reassurances over the nausea that chokes him, he can only hear screams and he's apologizing again and again and there's another voice begging for forgiveness with him.

Yubel feels guilty too, he realizes. They wanted to help and they put a target on the kids' back instead.

It's easy to joke about their own fears. But the kids, gods, he just wanted to help and he knew he shouldn't have left Adam and it's all his fault, it's all his fault.

Judai breathes deeply. He can’t break here. He just can’t.

A voice that sounds like Johan’s hums in his ear, asking him if he still dreams about dying, and if he thinks they aren’t the worst of his nightmares. It’s somehow harder than ever to swear to Yubel that he’s not dying anytime soon. It’s just so far from being his priority right now.

Yubel is hurting.

The three of them had found a hideout, with a lot of future ‘goods’ to sell, so basically kids who were showing potential. Some as young as five, the oldest were twelve. Twelve and terrified. They had fought the moment Judai and Johan had entered and as always, Judai had jumped in front of his fragile, mortal friend. So as always, Yubel had taken the hit.

Not physically, no, the kids would have felt the backlash, but they had taken the pain inside themselves while Judai healed and tried to comfort the kids, telling them that everything was alright. Yubel could feel his worry, he knew they were hurting. But there would be time to heal in peace later, right now, saving the kids was more important.

There’s a girl there, calm and peaceful, as if she wasn’t in a life or death situation. Yubel thinks she looks creepy. She’s holding one of the youngests as if he was the most precious thing in the world, with some kind of reverence.

“I am very thankful,” she tells them with big glossy eyes, “these people did not wish us anything good.”

“You are very mature,” Johan tells her with surprise, “I’m surprised you’re staying so calm. Is that your little brother?”

She shakes her head with that creepy peaceful smile. She should be terrified or she should be relieved. She’s being freed from terrible abusers. But she’s so serene, as if she doesn’t care.

“No, but he’s powerful! Very powerful! So I know he will do big things!”

Maybe the kid really is powerful, Yubel doesn’t know. They’re trying to heal but they are curious. Detecting strength is something anyone can do, but they feel like that’s not what the girl is doing.

 _“Is she able to detect potential?”_ they growl in annoyance.

“It’s more like he’s going to be powerful, right?” Judai asks.

“Oh yes! He will!”

She then shows just a little bit of hesitation before her smile grows and Yubel is so happy that they’re already out and waiting for the authorities to pick the kids up, because they do not want to spend more time with that little twerp and her terrifying hindsights than absolutely necessary.

“I don’t think he has parents. Can I name him?”

“Huh?” Johan clearly doesn’t know what to make of this. “You… You can I guess, but I don’t know if they’ll let you…”

“I want to name him after you!”

They had planned to ditch the kids the moments they were taken care of. Nothing against them, but being a witness in a supernatural case is never easy, usually it’s people like the Kaiba brothers or Pegasus who take care of that. Plus, they can’t let their trail get cold, they have to catch the branch that was arranging that transaction, so they need to hurry and can’t answer a thousand questions.

Giving their names is a big no-no. The girl doesn’t even let them look at each other, wondering about what they should do, before humming pensively.

“Hum, but I don’t know your names. Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’ll name him after how the two of you look.”

She smiles at Johan.

“You look bright! Like a big big light and it’s pretty and strong and fierce, but also very soft, I like it a lot!”

And then she turns towards Judai and her smile gets even bigger.

“But you… You look more powerful than I could ever imagine. You look like the world, no… like the universe!”

And then she has a happy look on her face and she says, with finality in her tone of voice:

“You look divine.”

They catch the branch responsible for the kidnappings and some of the sales pretty quickly. Thank god for connections, they all end up in prison despite the supernatural nature of the evidence. Turns out the Kaiba brothers really don’t like child abusers. Johan guesses even severe, rich and harsh people have their limits when it comes to the horrors they’re ready to accept.

But it’s not over. They only dismantled part of the organisation, the almost public ones, the ones that aren’t careful.

It’s not over.

Judai doesn’t know what to do.

On the one hand, he doesn’t want Johan to get hurt. On the other, he doesn’t want Yubel to get hurt either. But Johan is so very human and so very vulnerable and Judai knows he’ll never be able to stop protecting his boyfriend. The same way he knows Yubel will never be able to stop protecting him themselves.

And he doesn’t want to keep going without Johan, really. Yubel and him love each other a lot, but when things get that dark, a little bit of light is good and Johan is so good and so bright and maybe that girl with the big smile did have a point about how soft he is and he just doesn’t know if mentally he’s strong enough to keep going on his own.

But he doesn’t want Johan to get hurt.

He feels like he's drowning and like he's going to break.

He still can’t, cant, _can’t_ break, not yet.

He needs something to focus on that isn't Johan or pain or the fear.

It's a suggestion from Daitokuji, who had tried many, many ideas that were mostly shot down due to how impractical they were and sometimes the wish to not worry Johan too much. But this one? This one he actually stops to think about.

And right now they're moving and doing their best to catch up to the big guys behind the child trafficking so he can't really try, but it stays in his head and he can still think about it. One evening, when Johan is sleeping softly but Judai can't, as always, Yubel suggests he takes the computer and starts listening, maybe he could find what he might enjoy.

He'd been doing his research at night so for Johan, it comes out of nowhere when, as they're waiting for Hane Kuriboh and Ruby to come back with possible intel, Judai suddenly says:

"I want to learn how to play an instrument."

Johan blinks at him, flabbergasted, but thinks better than asking where that comes from.

"Didn't you mention having a piano, back when you were a kid?"

"Yeah. I know where most of the notes are on a keyboard, but that doesn't mean I know how to play."

Johan hums.

"Any idea what you'd like to try?"

Judai blushes and seems embarrassed, not by his answer, but by how sure he is of it.

"The Celtic harp."

He immediately keeps going.

"I just really like how it sounds and I had never heard of it before, but it played in the music of a movie I liked and I've been listening to it more, recently, and I just really love it."

Johan laughs a little.

"I don't know much about it," he admits, "just heard it takes a lot of hard work and practice."

Judai laughs too and it's maybe just a tad shy.

"Well, practice is the one thing I'm good at."

Yubel thinks they’re going to kill something soon if that tension, surrounding their boys, doesn’t stop. It’s not that there’s really tension between one another, but more that the weight of their ordeal is starting to get heavier and heavier and it makes all three of them barely able to breathe some days, like a hand around their neck, squeezing until every joy they can feel is stuck in their lungs forever.

The unease was always there, since they found Adam and Lyn, and grew with time and more horrors uncovered. No human trafficking story has ever been ‘not that bad’, but they’ve been at it for months. Even with the connections they have to help them! But no matter how much O’Brien or the big corporations help, there’s still more to dig. They were not meant for this kind of investigative work, they were not meant for this look deep inside humanity most terrible vices. They were meant for helping kids find their spirit partners and stopping power-hungry fanatics from going too far with a good duel or an even better punch to the face.

One evening, Judai just puts down a report from O’Brien and starts sobbing silently into his hands. Johan holds him and wisely doesn’t read it. Yubel takes it because at least one of them needs to know.

Their hand stays on their lover’s head, slowly petting it in comfort. It’s not even that much more awful than what they’re used to, but it was the one thing too much. The straw that broke the camel’s back. Judai has needed to break for a while, now, and it’s still not even enough. He needs more. He needs a lot more. He’s adding horror upon traumas. They need out as soon as possible.

Yubel wishes this terrible, terrible thing was as easy as having to find the right asshole and kick them through a window until they bled out on the pavement.

They think it’s the one spec of blood that wouldn’t weigh heavily on Judai’s conscience.

“Aren’t there therapists specialized for war veterans? Or people in other heavy fields of work?” they ask with deep concern. “I’ve heard it does wonders to humans.”

“How do we explain?” asks Johan, still holding Judai who has thankfully stopped sobbing but is now staring at the wall like a broken doll. “It’s always been the one issue. We can’t really go into the details of Dark World.” (Judai winces and Johan looks sorry, but he had every right to say it.)

“It won’t be for everything,” they admit with a sigh, “but explaining that you were involved in the dismantling of a child trafficking ring can help you two work through some issues at least.”

“I’m fine.” Johan says immediately.

Judai laughs, his voice devoid of any emotion.

“Oh, Johan. You are certainly no fine.”

And Johan swallows. Because no, none of them is fine. Yubel has the stomach for these, but even them don’t know how much longer they can go through this without murdering someone. Johan, as positive and determined as he is, is only convinced he has to hold himself up for them.

He doesn’t. As long as they don’t break all at the same time, it will be alright. Or even if they do, as long as it’s in a safe place, where they can rest for a while. They’re strong. They can take it. They can break, put the pieces back, and start walking again, one step at a time.

The spirit just wishes they didn’t have to.

“You don’t have to stay strong.” Yubel says.

Johan bites his lips, a frustrated expression on his face. Probably more from not being as good an actor as he’s pretending to be than from Yubel’s words.

He doesn’t break this time, he’s too busy trying to put some of Judai’s still working pieces back together. Yubel watches them as the silent guardian they often are. The spirits around them chatter and chirp and smile at them and awkwardly try to comfort. Yubel suspects these constant presences are one of the reason it’s so hard for them to allow themselves to break.

They swear to themselves that if this business is not over by the end of that month, they’ll force the two boys to take a holiday.

They need it so badly by this point.

For the moment, they wait until they’re slumbering away, tears at the corners of their eyes, to take Judai’s phone and make a much needed call.

“Judai?” the voice of a very much awake (right, time zones) Jim says quickly enough. “What is going on? You usually don't call first.”

Yubel coughs. They’re surprised they’re still physical, but they know it won’t last with Judai asleep.

“It’s me.” They say.

Jim is silent a second or so, but they can hear the tentative smile in his voice when he starts talking again.

“Is everything alright?” He asks.

They hesitate one second.

“No,” they admit, “not they’re not. I need a bit of positivity. What have you discovered recently?”

Thankfully, Jim doesn’t ask questions. He starts talking. Yubel sighs and listens to remember everything. They need to remember everything to tell them in the morning, to lighten their heavy minds. It's the only way they know how to help, right now.

“It’ll be over soon,” Yubel tells Judai after yet another mostly dead end (each and every time they only ever get the rat’s tail, by this point they think one of those they’re chasing must have future sight as a power), “one way or another, it’ll be over.”

Judai wants and doesn’t want to argue. It won’t be over until they get all the kids to safety, he wants to say, the perpetrators also have to be stopped.

He can’t.

He’s just too tired. He needs it to stop.

Johan nods, as if it was the only acceptable answer and maybe it was.

“What should we do afterwards?” he asks.

Judai can say that Yubel want to scream words like “vacations”, “rest” or “sleep” and oh, all of this sounds so nice, but it’s not Johan’s real question and they both know it.

Rest will feel empty if they’re alone with their thoughts.

So Yubel sighs.

“We check if there are harp teachers near your house,” they say, “since that’s Judai’s plan.”

“What if there aren’t?”

“Then we move house,” they answer firmly.

Judai chuckles weakly at that. It would indeed take their mind off things for a while, but Johan looks offended. He loves his house and Judai knows he’d never sell it unless he had no other choice.

“We can teleport,” Judai reminds Yubel kindly, “we don’t have to go that far.”

“Or you can walk,” Johan argues, “you always appear somewhere inconvenient when you teleport inside the house. There will be teachers near, anyway, don’t worry about that.”

Oh yeah, Judai remembers appearing on the table, on the armchair Johan was sitting in, on the vacuum, on the trash can… Johan probably has a point.

“I’ve been thinking,” he tries, “maybe we could try gardening? You ever thought of that?”

“Maybe,” Johan mumbles, “something constructive… That could be good.”

The crystal beasts haven’t been the most vocal since their work has started. They mostly give them the privacy they crave to cry their hearts out. But for this one time, Amber Mammoth appears to say a few words.

“Don’t think too hard. It doesn’t have to be gardening or something constructive.”

Amethyst’s voice comes too, but she mostly snarls.

“You don’t even have a garden you dingus.”

Emerald Turtle is the next and last one to give advice.

“I think what they’re trying to say is that it doesn’t matter what you do. As long as it makes you happy.”

Happy.

That word feels both empty and so warm. Judai looks at Johan.

He sighs and then he gives them all a small smile, it’s a smile that Judai both loves and hates because everytime it makes his heart do painful things. It’s so small, but it’s hopeful and sincere and they really, really need hope.

“Things that make us happy, huh?”

“I think they have a point,” Yubel says before embracing him, “that’s what we should do. Try new things. Find what makes us happy.”

“Chasing happiness instead of bad guys.” Judai concludes softly.

Johan gives him a look that says a lot. Words that won’t be uttered. Judai smiles tentatively. Johan and Yubel both smile back.

“To happiness.” Johan says softly before kissing him.

To happiness indeed.

The breakthrough, so wished for but seemingly never coming, finally arrives. They don’t even have to do much, just make sure the “merchandise” is safe and sound while the heavily armed people come and arrest every person participating in the auction, including the ringleader of the whole thing. It was very secretive, the place and hour were told through coded words from and to trusted people only. It took days of surveillance from all of the Crystal Beasts and Hane Kuriboh to get the intel they needed to finally put an end to this thing.

They’re here to protect the kids and serve as reinforcement only if things don’t happen as planned.

Of course they don’t happen as planned.

The ringleader tries to escape. But that was actually expected in a way. What wasn’t expected was that he would lack the necessary common sense to put his life before his profits. So him going to the kids, probably to snag one or two, maybe to take some hostage, actually comes as a surprise.

Johan doesn’t panic. He’s gone through the desert world without panicking, he can handle one little man and oh my god he’s got a gun.

And as dangerous as the desert world was, he had the advantage of his spirits being real physical beings there. He may not have been as natural as Judai when it came to taking advantage of their strength in new original ways to help them, but it was still an advantage, friends who could help him fight.

He calms down instantly when Judai jumps in front of the guy.

It's a good thing one of them still has powers that can actually be useful in these situations.

The gunshot is loud and despite knowing how powerful Judai is, Johan feels his heart sink. One of the kids cries out in terror. Judai stumbles.

“Move out of the…” starts the man before choking in pain and looking, in shock, at his now bleeding shoulder.

Judai grunts, clearly shaken. He’s not used to Yubel’s damage redirection, he’d rather never have to use it. Johan almost feels bad, it looks awfully painful. But just as soon, he remembers that this is it.

This man is the reason so many kids have been hurt. He’s the reason Adam and Lyn were still unconscious, comatose in their beds the last time they saw them. He’s the reason both of them have barely smiled in the last months.

Gods, their friends would not recognize them anymore, would they...

It’s a sobering thought, one that makes Johan want to puke and scream and cry. But he turns to the kid next to him and smiles.

“Don’t worry. My friend has powers too.”

The kid opens wide eyes, but he seems even more scared.

“But… We can’t use our powers here! There’s this machine…”

Johan feels his heart falling into his stomach and he jumps on his feet, noticing late, far too late, that he can’t see Ruby anymore.

“Judai! Careful, they have a device that weakens you.”

And suddenly the grunt and the stumble feel different. It wasn’t just Judai being unused to this power. _It was Judai not being able to redirect all of the damage._

And Johan is scared because the guy on the ground has a wound on his shoulder, but it’s not as deep as it should be and Judai…

Judai still hasn’t moved. He’s standing, but he’s also shaking a bit. And the leader stands up, and Johan knows, he just knows he’s going to shoot again because now Judai might be just weak enough to not be able to redirect anything else.

Johan wants to scream. He doesn’t have the time. He hears Judai mumble something inaudible, or perhaps in a language Johan doesn’t understand.

And then the red mist appears. And grows. It grows a lot.

And in a few seconds a very very real Sky Dragon of Osiris is howling inside the warehouse and charging one small, pitiful man with a gun.

There’s a lot of blood. Johan thinks the guy is still alive when the god disappears, but he can’t be bothered to check. He’s unconscious and won’t hurt them, it’s all that matters.

“Judai!” he screams, running to him.

He is welcomed by dazed golden eyes and Johan thinks he could kiss him because he was so scared, but they’re fine, now, they’re fine.

He had just started to smile, relieved, when Judai’s eyes roll back and he collapses.

According to the medics, yes, blood loss and exhaustion are a good reason for passing out. They did not only have an exhausting week but some exhausting months. And summoning a god in the real world, with no support from a duel disk or anything else, while his powers were already weakened must have been a daunting task to say the least.

Still, it’s Judai. And Johan realizes for the first time that he too fell into the trap of seeing the all powerful superhuman half-spirit hero of the world and forgetting that even he has limits that aren’t just mental.

It makes it all the more frightening.

In his head, again and again, he’s reminded that they had not worried about him too much. His powers were too powerful, or they belonged to a spirit. These people wouldn’t be able to hurt him.

Lesson learnt, never take invulnerability for granted ever again.

He takes Judai’s hand and wishes for him to wake up and for Yubel to come and see him. His spirits try to comfort him, Amethyst is talking and so is Sapphire, but neither of them seem able to reach him. He’s just terrified and he needs both of his lovers to talk to him.

He’s not fine.

He’s so very not fine.

Judai moves after a while. It’s small, but it’s enough for Johan to jump on his feet, remembering one second later that the doctors said to not overwhelm him and to call them.

“Hey,” he mumbles, “are you alright?”

Judai groans softly, still in pain. He can’t move his shoulder and Johan puts a hand on his chest to discourage him from sitting down.

“Stay down. You got hurt.”

“The kids…”

“Safe.”

It’s a guess, he didn’t stay there long enough to see how the authorities dealt with them, but none of them got hurt, that he is sure of.

“You?” Judai mumbles.

Johan thinks about answering that he’s fine.

He knows a lie won’t reassure Judai, even in that state.

“Better, now that you’re awake.”

Judai hums and opens his eyes, weakly. Johan’s hand hovers above the call button as he freezes, watching him.

“You got hurt?” Judai asks in a confused voice.

Johan shakes his head, unable to answer. Judai raises his hand, the one attached to the shoulder that wasn’t hurt, to touch him. It caresses his cheek and then reaches the back of his head. Heavily, Judai lets his hand fall down, pulling Johan with it.

Johan stays there a few seconds. Breathing against Judai’s chest in silence while his boyfriend tries to regain his bearings.

He doesn’t want to overwhelm him. And he knows he should call a doctor.

“Judai,” he regretfully says after a minute or two, “there’s something wrong.”

“What?” Judai mumbles in a tired voice.

Johan raises his head and yes, it’s still there.

“Your right eye,” he says desperately, “it’s still gold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, the "divine" part is a reference to 5D's. I woke up with this horrying thought one morning and went 'what if... WHAT IF?' and I hesitated, but I figured I could put the idea in my fic.  
> Also the Celtic Harp part is definitely me self-projecting, I've been a pianist for more than 10 years but I fell out of practice and while I still enjoy playing, I also want to try new things and this one is my priority.
> 
> Next chapter, well it won't start happy, but it's probably, in general, the most light-hearted of the bunch! I mean, I don't know about you, but I need the comfort in hurt/comfort ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the rollercoaster that were the last months, life starts slowing down and progressively, our heroes learn how to be happy again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for the shower scene, there are not so fun things there, like a bit of self harm/pain ideation and then non graphic description of awful stuff that happened to some of the kids last chapter. But then we're all set and there shouldn't be anything else that feels triggering (I hope, please tell me if I'm wrong)  
> This chapter doesn't start happy, but in general it ended up being the most light-hearted of all those I've written. I guess it's in part because I wrote most of it in November, which is the most depressing month of the year to me due to sunlight decreasing a lot (I'm a houseplant, I need sunlight to survive), so I needed cheering up.  
> This chapter is as long as the two last ones combined, damn! I guess that's what happens when you try to have a bit of closure with everyone.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy the conclusion to that small series! I have ideas for other stuff in slightly different universes, but they are mostly plotty stuff, so I need to make sure I'll be able to write it before promising anything :)  
> Also, I did let a little bit of my bias for two other Judai ships show here x) But that's the fun of fanfiction so I regret nothing

Yubel is still surprised by how easily O’Brien smuggled them out of the hospital without anyone discovering Judai’s eye, but they count their blessings and decide not to comment. Waking up groggy and like they had been hit by a truck was an old experience they hadn’t felt in years and really hoped they’d never have again.

Waking up because Judai was having a panic attack and Johan was barely making things better by frantically telling him to breathe made it both worse and better than last time. Learning that way that pain could still knock them out was, ironically, a terrible wake up call.

They have no idea why Judai’s eye stayed gold. Well, they do have a few actually, but nothing conclusive.

“ _We need the professor,_ ” they say once they’re all standing in O’Brien’s temporary room, “ _maybe he will know what’s happening._ ”

“Pharaoh is at Asuka’s.” Judai mumbles, glaring at the ground as if it could erase the magical glow in his eye.

A glow that brings a lot of bad memories for him and O’Brien. Yubel doesn’t know why he didn’t say anything about it, instead choosing to pour some coffee. They suspect he’s just better at putting his feelings aside than most are. He accepted them pretty quickly after all.

Johan looks at the coffee cups with doubt in his eyes.

“Are you sure Judai should be having coffee? He’s still recovering from a bullet.”

“I heal fast.”

“You still need to heal. Fatigue inhibitors can’t be good when you heal and that’s not even mentioning the anti-oxydants.”

Judai glowers at the ground more, but doesn’t take the cup of coffee. O’Brien looks wistfully at the one chair in the room, where Johan had forced Judai down.

“So Yubel thinks you should see the ghost.” He simply comments.

Johan nods. Yubel had gotten used to materializing when it’s only the four of them, but right now, with Judai in that state, no one wants to try that. It makes Yubel strangely sad. They had gotten attached to the stone-faced mercenary who once sacrificed everything for the one they loved. They liked his no-nonsense attitude and how supportive he could be despite that. There was a reason Judai stayed so close to him even after Dark World.

“The kids asked about the two of you.” he suddenly says. “They were worried.”

Judai’s startles, eyes shocked. Yubel hates how surprised he is everytime someone else than his closest friends ask about his health.

“ _You did get shot in front of them._ ” They remind him kindly.

“They’re going to be traumatised.” he mutters.

“Probably,” O’Brien admits, “but not more than from what happened to them before you saved them. One of them also wanted to know if your dragon was alright.”

His heavy stare is expressionless when it falls on Judai, but Yubel can feel the need to lecture on his face. O’Brien never really got out of his parent-ing habits when it came to Judai. Judai never complains, Yubel thinks (knows) he actually enjoys having someone so concerned for him.

“Don’t tell me you materialized Yubel in your weakened state.”

“No, no!” Judai exclaims as Johan winces. “Yubel passed out when the shot didn’t heal, they took all the pain for a while, which we’re definitely going to have a discussion about. No, I didn’t summon them.”

There’s a blank. O’Brien is waiting for the ‘but’ and Yubel is almost laughing because if the situation hadn’t been so dire it would have been hilarious. Finally, Judai winces again, looks at Johan for help, realizes he won’t get any, and swallows.

“I might have, however, asked the Sky Dragon of Osiris for help.”

O’Brien’s eyes widen in shock and…

“YOU DID WHAT?”

The first thing Asuka does, when they knock at her apartment, is staring at Judai’s bandage, right around his eye.

“What happened?” she asks.

“O’Brien kicked us out.” Johan answers with a laugh.

“No he didn’t,” Judai sighs, “but he basically said that he would not come ask for our help again until I asked Prof Daitokuji something.”

“I was talking about your eye. Fubuki told me you were untouchable.”

Judai winces and so does Johan.

“ _Yeah, we might have been wrong about that._ ” Yubel snarks with their hands protectively drawn around Judai.

Asuka doesn’t move. She hasn’t heard. Judai really needs to remember that not all his friends are seers.

“Long story short, my eye isn’t hurt, but that doesn’t mean I’m untouchable. It’s… something else.”

Asuka is safe. Asuka never lived through the Supreme King’s reign. Asuka is used to people with dark powers doing reckless stuff and being absolute dummies. So once they’re safely inside, Judai does show her his eye.

She’s silent for a while. Then she looks at Johan and says:

“That’s inconspicuous.”

“Very.” Judai says dryly.

“We were wondering if the professor might have an idea what to do?” Johan says with a small laugh.

“I’ll see if I can catch Pharaoh, you know how that cat is. But how did that happen?”

Another wince and Judai sincerely considers lying to her before relenting. Hiding the truth from his friends never brought anything good and Asuka deserves better than that.

“I… may have gotten hit by a bullet and summoned a god with my powers?”

“While you were already weakened,” Johan adds with a considerate nod, “or there would have been no issues.”

Asuka looks at them with her mouth opened in shock. She thought that after all their high school adventures nothing could surprise her, probably.

But it’s Asuka.

So she just closes her mouth and sighs and ruffles her newly cut hair (she likes her new pixie cut, but she’ll let them grow out again, just to check if there’s a look she especially enjoys, Judai knows).

“Did O’Brien let you guys take a shower before kicking you out?”

“He did not kick us out.” Judai mutters with the look of a cat under the rain.

“And no.” Johan concludes happily.

Too happily. Judai doesn’t trust that high of his even one second. He doesn’t need to check with Yubel either to know they agree. Their little light is pretending. That’s not good.

“Take one, then. It might help you feel better.”

It definitely will, Judai knows. He can still smell the hospital on his skin and he hates every second of it. Too many memories, too many times he woke up in these white walls with a nurse going ‘Oh you’re up sweetie? Your father will finish his work in a few minutes.’ Worse, there are all the people he came to visit who, in the best cases, would look at him with fear and in the worst simply not wake up.

“How big is that shower of yours?” he asks.

Asuka is taken aback. She narrows his eyes at him suspiciously.

“Do you... intend to take it together?”

“Yes.” he answers with a pointed glance à Johan.

And Asuka blushes. Judai does suppose he never said anything about their relationship, he didn’t assume Johan would either. By the way Johan looks, embarrassed as all hell, that’s not how he intended to bring it up.

But Judai is tired, and his eye is scaring him, and he doesn’t like how Johan is pretending and he hurt Yubel again even if it wasn’t really his fault. He’s not in the mood for social niceties.

Johan seems embarrassed once they reach the shower.

“We’re not really… doing these things much.”

Judai rolls his eyes before checking how healed he is. It looks like his body mostly got its shit back together and he can see the scar tissue, still pinkish, but if he told anyone that he got shot yesterday they’d never believe him with how healed he is.

Good.

He needs that shower to be long and warm, open wounds wouldn’t be welcome.

“We’re not going to do anything naughty, I’m not enough of an animal to do that to Asuka.”

“Well she certainly believes we’re going to.” Johan points out with a laugh.

Judai finishes undressing and gives him a look when he notices he has yet to take off anything.

“It’ll take less water this way, with how I intend to drown myself in it.” he grumbles.

Johan’s eyes widen. It’s the tone of voice, Judai knows. He’s moody, angry, and he hates it. He sighs and tries to give him a wincing smile, to show Johan that he’s not mad at him.

“Sorry, I just… really don’t feel like myself right now.”

He can see how Johan’s eyes soften and how his smile gets smaller, more honest in his compassion than he was in his joy right before. A weight disappears from Judai’s heart. Good. He hasn’t lost him entirely then.

He tilts his head.

“Come on,” he insists, “you need it too.”

Johan nods.

“Go inside first. I’ll join you in a bit.”

Judai hesitates, then relents, deciding to trust him. He will wait, anyway. He’ll stay inside that shower until Asuka gets angry at them for wasting the water she pays for if that’s how long it takes for Johan to join him.

He turns the water scalding hot. It burns. His skin gets pink immediately and it feels oh so damn good to hurt for this kind of thing, for a change.

After a few delicious minutes of wondering if that's what being cooked alive feels like, his blood finally finally starts to feel warm again. He feels human again.

There's a sob in his throat as he exhales in relief. Yubel sings in his soul and he hums.

Alive.

Breathing.

 _"He's coming in,_ " Yubel tells him, " _you might want to scale the heat down._ "

Judai nods and changes the temperature to a pleasant warm. Almost too pleasant. Part of him craved that punishment. He deserved it, for all the Lyns and the Adams, for all the kids he didn't save, for those he saved too late, for how worried he made Johan, for the people he once hurt, for…

A sharp hiss from Yubel warns him to stop his thoughts here. He turns to Johan who freezes. The shower is barely big enough for them both, so Judai scrambles against the wall so he has more space but Johan's hand is moving.

It cups Judai's head, gently.

"Are you crying?"

Judai startles. And there's a soreness around his eyelids. He's crying. He hadn't noticed.

"It's nothing," he mumbles, "relief I think. Come here."

Johan comes closer and Judai lays his head against his shoulder. He breathes in. Out. And there's another sob. He kisses Johan's shoulder.

"Let it out," he breathes against the skin, "cry, scream, sob. Let it out."

He can almost hear Johan's smile. Yubel growls in concern as a confirmation.

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't!" Judai begs - and his voice is hoarse. "You are NOT fine. Don't. Don't pretend. It's the worst. It's… suffocating. It's living a lie. You do not want that believe me."

Johan lays his head on Judai's and there's some wistfulness in the posture. He embraces him and stays against him.

"How long?" He mumbles.

His voice is watery. Judai hums.

"Most of my life. Thinking 'I have to be fine' and fake smiling only gets you that far."

It got him some friends. Friends who are still learning to know him because he's not the person they thought they knew and he probably never was.

In days like this he wonders why they still bother with him.

Johan sobs and it breaks Judai's heart.

"The girl from our second find…" he whimpers.

Judai hums softly. He knows what girl he is talking about. He remembers her frail body and how broken it was. Her ‘master’ didn’t need her anymore when they got to her. No one had batted an eye.

“And… And that boy in the cage…”

Some private sales they had to spy on. The one where they had learnt that the machine that was supposed to extract powers wasn’t working properly indeed. That boy could see things. The one who bought his power wanted to make sure it wouldn’t go back to him.

“And the babies. There were some babies, Judai, who abducts babies because they suspect they have powers?!”

Monsters do. Monsters in human forms. Monsters they’re both pretty familiar with by this point.

So he lets Johan rant and vent and cry and sob and howl.

The warm water washes away their tears.

They leave with eyes red and noses running.

But they feel more alive already.

Asuka is avoiding their eyes when they come back and Yubel wants to howl with laughter. They did stay pretty long in her shower, but somehow, the spirit feels like the boys don’t know if they’d rather let her think they did fuck in there or if they should tell her they actually broke down sobbing and crying because their life and the ones of the kids they try to help are a bunch of tragedies.

Some say when your life sees too much tragedy, you get used to it. Judai was proof some people never did. They suspected Johan to be the same.

“So, I did find Pharaoh!” Asuka exclaims. “Which means that Daitokuji shouldn’t be far. He’s hiding behind a bunch of cardboard boxes, in the cupboard.”

Judai's eye is still golden, but the edge is gone at least.

While Judai goes to disturb the cat from his napping place, Johan asks Asuka how Fubuki is doing. The last months cut them from their friends more than they ever were, even during Judai's worst weeks.

The self proclaimed master of love is doing fine, better than fine since he apparently has a big role coming up. Johan does his best not to show that he had forgotten that Fubuki has become an actor. Most of their visits to the man were to check how he was doing with his powers and catch up on private life, Yubel knows he wonders if Judai even knows.

Judai apparently does know since he comes back with a big cat in his arms, asking if it’s true that Fubuki got an award for best new actor, last month. If Judai knows what happens to their friends better than he does, Johan realizes that he did indeed lose himself these last months.

He lays down his head on the couch’s headrest, wondering if that’s why the last hours have felt so unreal and out of this world.

It doesn’t take long to get Daitokuji to appear and talk to them. The ghost is first incredibly happy to see them, he was so worried when they decided the situation was actually too tense to have Pharaoh with them. He wishes he could have helped them, Johan knows.

He also winces pretty badly when Judai shows him his eye.

“Well that’s not good.”

“How bad is it?” Johan asks with the trepidation of someone waiting for worst news but also desperately wanting to finally have an answer.

“Oh, it’s not bad per se. It’s just not good because you’re basically bleeding raw power from that eye.”

Johan really doesn’t see how this ‘isn’t bad per se’.

“Is there any risk that I might run out?” Judai asks with a frown, more annoyed than worried.

“No, no, it replenishes itself far too quickly for that. It’s more about your mental state than your physical one that I’m worried. It shows, in short, that you do not feel safe. So your power is always on high alert.”

Judai has a hard time remembering the last time he got hurt, physically, without it involving some kind of magic or spirit stuff or soul thingies. It’s sort of a habit, now. He does not get hurt. He simply doesn’t.

That bullet was a painful wake-up call. So maybe it does explain why, unconsciously, his body and his power refuse to lay low.

So his right eye keeps glowing. And so he hides it beneath a few bandages (there’s a call to Jim to ask for help, and they talk about it like it’s a joke, but Judai swallows down his bitterness towards himself before thanking his friend profusely) and goes to these music classes he wanted.

He is good at practicing, he always was.

And Johan’s bright eyes, that are so somber these days, light up when he comes back and talks about all he learnt that day. And Judai forgets for a few minutes all that he saw and all that he lived through, because when he’s trying to remember which cord makes which note, and when he’s showing it to Johan later, he’s just a normal young man learning a new craft.

They need a break.

Judai takes up the Celtic Harp. Johan takes up sewing. It’s actually Kenzan who gives him lessons at first, because Johan knew the basics, but he also never spent so much time in situations that risked destroying his clothes and maybe it’s a little late to realize how hard his favored style is to fix up.

So he fixes up, and he talks to his family while doing so. It’s peaceful.

Judai takes up music, Johan takes up sewing.

Yubel takes up reading.

They had started with house plants. They had no garden, but house plants were nice and pretty and they made the house feel alive. But when you leave for a long time like they all do, they tend to die. So Yubel takes up reading instead. They read everything. They already tended to favour the evenings spent behind a good book rather than the ones where they watched a movie, and even sometimes the ones where they decided to simply cuddle in peace.

Now that they’re physical most of the time, they often sit at home, on the biggest armchairs they have, sometimes on the couch, wings tucked neatly on their back as all of their attention is absorbed by the novel, the brochures, the comics and other biographies they read with passion.

There’s a day where Johan suggests they buy them an ereader. Judai looks at the pile of books they have already read and still have to read, taking so much space that they’re thinking about putting some in the attic. It’s not that bad an idea, he guesses, but it means making sure they do not buy book after book after book without checking on their budgets. After all, the ones who would be in trouble then wouldn’t be Yubel...

“Should we make Yubel a bank account?” he asks hesitantly.

Johan looks at him with the face of someone who had the exact same thought he did.

“Maybe… Let’s try setting boundaries first?”

It’s respite.

Sometimes one of them looks at the bandages around Judai’s eye and the mood darkens.

But mostly, it’s respite. They can finally breathe. They can try to heal.

“How did that happen?” Johan asks, bewildered, to a not less surprised Yubel.

“I don’t know. I didn’t even think he was able to catch colds, now!” They admit.

Judai is burning up and pouting, his cheeks are reddening. His golden eye is still glowing, but it doesn’t seem to burn more than usual. Johan is more confused than ever. Count on Judai for travelling around the world in illness infested places, when it’s cold, when viruses fly everywhere and not get anything.

But he walks without socks on for less than one hour and now he is ill.

That’s ridiculous, somehow. Johan doesn’t even know why he thinks it’s more ridiculous than everything in his life in general, but it’s definitely ridiculous for a half-spirit kind of godly person to be stuck in bed because he’s sick with a cold. Especially since it doesn’t seem to affect Yubel.

“Maybe since his power is on high-alert,” Daitokuji suggests, “they forego what they think is less dangerous or important. Like this kind of sickness.”

“That would make sense,” Yubel admits, “but that only makes it more urgent for him to get better if this is the kind of thing that can happen.”

This is still utterly ridiculous, but at least one person here has good bedside manners and constantly corporal hands that can prepare and hand over chicken noodle soup.

Soup is a strangely nice constant in their life. It's easy to make and to carry around, so they're used to sharing it on their travels. Johan makes bone broth and they always feel better. It's some kind of warm comfort. Even when they don't feel hungry, food is a life-saver when it comes to their mental strength.

So Johan makes chicken soup, with bones and all, and hopes it'll help Judai get better.

When he comes back with the soup, the blush on Judai's face is deeper than before and he smiles at him.

"M'okay." he slurs. "'ll be okay soon." he adds quickly.

"Sure," Johan humors him, "you want cuddles once you're done eating?"

Judai hums and starts tasting the soup with a happy sigh.

"Maybe... I don't want you to get sick..."

Then he giggles. It's just one second, but Johan's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Judai doesn't laugh as much as he used to, but he still does. Giggling, however, he hasn't heard since... Well probably since a pillow fight they had in his Osiris dorm room, a long time ago.

"What was that?"

Judai is smiling, but the blush on his face shows that he's probably not entirely conscious of what he's saying.

"I was just thinking... Idiots don't catch cold. Maybe I'm simply finally not an idiot anymore!"

Johan laughs softly at that and he hears Yubel snorting.

"Sure, love, sure."

"I wish I could make you more physical right now, Yubel. I mean, you could cuddle with me and not get sick..."

Another giggle.

"I like it when we cuddle."

Johan keeps smiling, bemused. He doesn't know whether Judai will be embarrassed once he feels better, somehow he doubts it, but it's still not something he would say like that usually.

"I do too," Yubel says softly.

"Like, all three of us! It's the best! I never know if I'm big enough, though. You're both taller than me so I don't think I'm as good at hugging as you guys are."

Johan smiles again and does wish he could make Yubel physical too.

"Come on, your soup will get cold."

Judai sips his soup, still smiling. Yubel sits in the air, thoughtful.

"Is it really height that makes someone a good hugger? I always felt there was more than that."

Between two sips, Judai nods with unbridled enthusiasm.

"Muscles!"

And then his eyes widen and he puts down his bowl of soup, now thankfully mostly empty.

"Oh! You know who would be great at hugs and cuddles?"

"No, but I feel like you're going to tell me." Johan laughs before sitting on the bed.

"O'Brien!"

Johan stops and thinks about it. The mercenary never felt like one who would hug anyone to be honest. But him and Judai are pretty close, probably a lot more than Judai is with many of his friends, especially at this point. Somehow, he still doubts it'd be easy to convince him to hug someone. Ill and almost delirious Judai seems to think the same way.

"But O'Brien isn't really affectionate... Jim is more likely to hug me."

He gasps, as if he suddenly cracked a mystery, and his big, shiny eyes, turn to Johan.

"Jim's personality in O'Brien's body would be the best friend ever! Do you think we can make them temporarily exchange bodies so that he would hug me?"

Laughter bubbles out of Johan's throat and he's holding his stomach in sheer glee. He doesn't know when was the last time he laughed so hard and for so long. It lasts entire minutes.

It feels far too good.

When he's able to calm down, Yubel is looking with a soft look and Judai is kind of pouting, but not too seriously.

"I was almost serious," he mumbles, "but O'Brien would kill us afterwards. I like us alive."

Johan smiles and kisses his forehead.

"I like us alive too." he says.

Judai smiles and the whole world seems lighter already. Johan almost wants that instant to extend for his whole life. He looks at Yubel who rolls their eyes in amusement.

"Love," they say, "are you done with your soup? We wouldn't want you to get some on the sheets."

Judai pouts for real this time and gives his bowl to Johan with eyes full of apologies. Johan takes it, satisfied with how much he ate.

"You should lie down," he says, "you're too warm, right now."

"You could almost say I'm hot!"

Johan laughs again, not as long this time, fortunately.

"Yes you are, but you're mostly cute!" he teases.

Judai grumbles but starts laying down.

"Not fair. I want to be hot. Like you, like Yubel, like Yusei too! Oh, Yubel, do you think Yusei would give good hugs? He's taller than me and he has good muscles."

Yubel laughs softly while petting the air, near his head. They see Johan's confusion.

"A time-traveller we met once. Living proof that Judai's type is handsome duellists who like the colour blue."

"I'm sure he'd give great hugs." Judai concludes with certainty.

"I'm sure he would," Yubel smiles, "but so will I and so will Johan once you're all better."

Judai smiles contently.

"You guys's hugs are the best anyway."

He's asleep in a matter of seconds. It takes all of Johan's control not to go lay down next to him. But he has a mostly empty bowl to wash, so he leaves to get to it.

Judai already feels better during morning and his fever seems to be gone. He doesn't remember most of what he said. Yubel and Johan still cuddle the hell out of him for hours, and he doesn't complain.

It takes a few weeks, not enough according to their friends, but they go back to work. Slower things, small things. Helping a lost spirit to find its way back home. Making sure Lyn and Adam are recovering (they're awake! Weaker than they used to be, but they're awake. Too scared to want to use their powers ever again, perhaps even too scared to spend much time with Johan, Yubel or Judai again, but they're awake and alive and that's more than they thought they would be). Making sure some old students are still doing fine.

It's only the next time they're not sure where to go that Judai starts to have these thoughts. He's practicing, but the notes are stilted, not as delicate as they usually are, so Johan knows something is wrong. He also knows Judai is trying to focus desperately on his music, probably to escape any other torment, so Johan turns to Yubel.

"Do you know what's going on?"

Yubel nods slowly, sadly.

"He's thinking about Dark World."

"I guess it never goes away, huh..."

"No, not like that..."

Yubel hesitates, but in the last years, they've always been the one to give words to Judai's feelings even when he didn't want to admit them himself.

"We've been helping people, but some of the people we helped got hurt. He's hurt the people there. So now he's wondering if he can help them."

Johan inhales in shock.

"He wants to go back there."

"He does. It's going to be hell for him. But if it allows him to ease just a little bit the pain and horror he inflicted on them, you know he will do it."

There's a beautiful moment when things start to go their way again. Sure, Judai's eye is still glowing, but everything else goes right for once. Their next three cases are calm, clean cases of lost kids just needing to learn a bit of control or spirits who lost their way back. In between they get to satisfy their wanderlust again and to visit every friend they can.

So they start with Shou.

Shou did notice they did not send anything to him for months, but he was too busy to care at the time, he still is to be honest. Next week is the opening night of the first tournament hosted by his and Ryou's new Cyber League.

Judai is squeeing in happiness and Johan congratulates him warmly before Shou basically sends them to force Ryou to sit down and stop working. He can do it. He doesn't need his still ill big brother to watch over his shoulder and end up bed-ridden again.

So they go and see Ryou.

It's almost ironic, but the aloof big brother's first reaction is to ask them what happened for them to stay out of contact for so long.

They don't want to talk about it.

But it's Ryou. It's the kaiser. It's probably the one uninvolved person here who won't blink while they talk about the horrors they had to go through. So maybe it's selfish, maybe it's just them using him to get it off their chests. But they tell him everything.

It takes hours. After a while, Yubel takes over to relieve their sore throats and because none of them wants to cry again. Ryou doesn't say a word. He almost doesn't even move an inch. His serious face is placid, neutral. Almost as if he didn't care.

Once they're done, he sighs.

"It really is a good think Fubuki only discovered his own powers recently, isn't it?"

Johan hadn't thought about that, but with how Judai's face scrunched up, he did. He probably also thought about how it could have happened to him if not for his separation with Yubel crippling his powers.

He also figures with some kind of nausea that maybe he actually was attacked by this kind of people but didn't remember it. Maybe Yubel was that protective for a reason back then, not just because isolation drove them insane.

Johan ponders and for a second thinks he might have suffered this kind of fate too if his powers had attracted more attention.

Ryou doesn't suggest a hug, but his eyes are compassionate when he asks them whether or not O'Brien knows people who could help their mental state. After all, he is their only contact to that darker side of society most people blissfully ignore. Johan suspects O'Brien has been looking for someone who could help but is waiting for them to tell him they got rid of Judai's eye problem.

A problem they also show Ryou, because since nothing fazes the ex kaiser, it makes it so easy to show him everything. He just stares at it and smirks.

"That could be good to intimidate opponents."

Judai groans, but Johan feels better immediately. Ryou is not as safe as Asuka. While he never fought the Supreme King (to his regret at the time), he did live under his reign. These eyes of gold can't bring back any happy memory.

"It reminds me of that time Edo convinced me to role play as master and servant," the man hums nonchalantly "I still have no idea how it happened."

Johan stands corrected.

"Is Edo coming to the opening night?" Judai asks.

"He better. He got a VIP invitation, all charges taken care of. And I checked, he doesn't have anything else planned."

"He's going to pretend he's doing it as a favour to you."

"He definitely is going to."

Judai chuckles and Ryou is still smirking in what is probably the most sincere demonstration of joy he will ever give them. Johan knows Judai and especially Shou are sometimes privy to softer happiness and kindness on his part, but him and Ryou have only ever been two guys who liked competing against each other. They're not that close.

He had no idea Ryou and Edo Phoenix had any kind of privileged relationship, he barely ever talked to Edo at all and only during these big group reunions they do.

Maybe that opening night will be the time to change that.

"So, who else is coming?"

Ryou looks at them with the calculating eyes of the ex best student of Duel Academia.

"Why? Will you stay to meet them here?"

Johan hasn't dueled in a while, except against Judai. He can feel his blood boil in anticipation and pure want.

"It's not as if we can participate."

It's a false excuse and Ryou knows it.

"As if you need to be in front of people to have a good duel with the participants."

That's a good argument. Judai looks at Johan and even though Johan knows he probably doesn't want to duel as much as Johan does, he's almost pleading. Most likely, he wants to see his friends, but doesn’t know if Johan wants to stay as much as he does. So Johan smiles and nods. He can't wait to tease his love about Ryou being handsome and clearly liking the colour blue.

Edo pretends he expected to see them here all along. The look he sends Ryou says otherwise and tells them there will be reckoning later for not warning him. Ryou is unrepentant and leaves Johan to guide the pro to his bedroom, as he's too busy dueling Yubel to be a good host ( _Also did you know that apparently exercise is bad for the heart, Phoenix? Because I’ve been prohibited from standing up by the new Kaiser, go see him if it bothers you._ ). Judai waves at the D-Hero user with an enthusiasm only mitigated by how quickly he goes back to checking on his own cards. It's been a long time, Johan knows, he doesn't really looks at them much anymore. The spirits there are so physically present that he never needs to think about possible combos, the cards he thinks he's going to need find their way there naturally.

Johan is pretty sure that's one of the main reasons he never even thinks about dueling for cash. For Judai, it might as well be cheating people out of their money. Nothing is fair against someone with sentient cards and whose very will influences his draws.

There's also the issue of creating new cards out of thin air thanks to his miraculous fusion powers, but somehow, it feels almost easier to accept that as a byproduct of his strangely versatile deck.

"Did you know that Elemental Heroes are seen as old school and useless, now?" Edo asks Johan as if he was just making conversation.

"Probably only because they don't have any of Neos' variations."

"Isn't it unfair to professionally use cards that you're the only one to possess?"

Johan laughs a bit, trying to remember what suite Ryou told him was Edo's.

"Well, between you, me or even Seto Kaiba, I think it's far too late for these considerations. Judai seems to be the only one to think the same way."

Edo hums pensively.

"It's been on my mind recently, to be honest. Is it really fair to take advantage of privileges like these? Should I rework my deck to make it less... unique?"

Johan pauses. He hadn't thought this conversation was really on Edo's mind. From the times he had talked about with the man before, Edo had been someone always snarky and ready to take potshots at everything including himself if necessary. But it was mostly in good jest, rather than condemning or serious.

But it's a question Johan never really thought about. Come to think of it, he had gotten famous before getting the Gem Beasts. These only added to his eccentric fame. But he had proven before already that he had a talent that went above his unique deck.

Edo has that same talent, he once gave Judai a hard time with an improvised deck after all. And it took years before he revealed his actual D-Heroes deck, mostly using E-Heroes before then.

With E-Heroes falling behind, maybe some rumours started, it's hard to know. Johan has to admit that he wonders if Judai going pro might have helped the archetype get more support, recently.

In any case, Johan has no idea how to answer to Edo's question.

"What made you wonder about that?" he asks prudently.

"Manjoume."

That's another thing Johan didn't expect and he can feel the raise of his eyebrows in surprise before trying to keep a more neutral face.

"Thunder? What did he do?"

Edo hesitates slightly, but the frustration is too strong for him to stay quiet.

"Beat me with Ojamas. Again."

Getting beat up by Ojamas is always a hard blow for the ego. Johan suspects Manjoume finds a lot of pleasure in that.

"They are common monsters, weak monsters, and yet he managed to make them into a powerhouse. Now that? That is talent no one can deny."

There's a self deprecating frown on his face and Johan is suddenly reminded of how young he is. He always act like the oldest and most mature of them all, but really, he's younger than him or Judai.

So Johan smiles softly at him.

"Well I don't think there's any shame in being unique, but if you really want to prove yourself, nothing stops you from starting from ground zero once again. Everyone has to do it once or twice or a thousand times, until finding something that feels right. So you can do it again"

Edo stares at him and nods briskly. It's cutting, but not mean.

Johan looks up and is oh so grateful that Ryou and Shou decided to put the names on the doors. He gestures awkwardly towards it with a smile.

"Your room is here."

Edo thanks him absentmindedly and gets inside. He stops on the doorway.

"Is everything alright?"

"What do you mean?"

Edo's face shows that his confusion doesn't convince him.

"You were far too neutral during our conversation. You're never that calm. Something happened. Are you okay?"

Oh.

Johan feels a sad smile forming itself on his lips.

"I will be."

Admitting that he is not fine, right now, is a relief, once again, even if it doesn't feel heroic. But it's worth feeling the weight on his shoulders disappear a little.

Majoume wasn’t invited, as he was supposed to be busy with a promotional tour, but he comes anyway and berates Shou for hours about it. Shou is barely listening to him, too busy organizing one thing or another, Judai is pretty sure Manjoume could as well be coat hanger right now with how many things the younger Marufuji has made him hold during his rant. When he’s finally done, Shou simply welcomes him and tells him to see with Johan and Judai for the rooms, as they’re currently occupying the free one they had.

Manjoume notices Judai only at that moment and the frustration is clear on his face, but barely hiding the worry and the way he stares at his hidden eye.

“How the hell did I not see you?” is his hello.

“Nice to see you too, Thunder, and I think you were too busy complaining to notice me.”

“As if anyone would be able to not notice you unless you’re doing your best to not be seen. What are you doing here, did Johan convince you to socialize?”

Yeah, the worry is definitely there. Judai wonders when he’ll notice that the Ojamas chattering out loud behind him are real physical beings right now. He guesses his prank will have to wait, Manjoume is too focused on him at the moment.

“Actually, the kaiser did! You know how intimidating he can be.”

Manjoume doesn’t buy his shit-eating grin for one second. His eyebrows actually furrow at that.

“You’ve never been intimidated by the kaiser. You’re definitely not going to start now.”

“I didn’t say I was intimidated, just that he’s intimidating.”

“I won’t believe you if you say Johan or Yubel was intimidated.”

Judai can almost see the smirk Yubel must be making behind him. Manjoume gives them a look that shows that it didn’t escape him either. Judai smiles again. Smaller and more sincere.

“Seriously, it was good luck. We came here to see Shou and decided to stay here when we learnt that most of you guys were invited.”

Manjoume starts on another rant on how the hell wasn’t he invited, even if just as courtesy and Judai escapes the worried questions for now. It’s not that he doesn’t want to share. It’s more that his friends don’t have to know everything the moment they arrive. Especially during such a joyous occasion. It’s over, after all. It’s over for now. They’ll have time to talk later.

Now, he should relax.

Yubel hugs him and he thinks, seriously, about making them real just to feel it. He leans into it either way.

“What the hell is that! How did you three break that glass of water!”

Oh ho. Judai does his best to smother his laughter and look somewhere else. He does not escape Manjoume’s fury, neither does he escape Ryou’s judgemental stare when he’s throwing the broken glass away.

Still worth it.

The opening night a success. Judai and Johan look at it all. The exhibition duels, the ceremonies, the announcement of the first match-ups, the credentials of each competitor, the thanks to those who created that new league... It lasts hours, but they watch every second of it. Johan is more used to it than Judai, who only ever looked at them on TV before. He almost expects to see longing in his lover's eyes, longing maybe not for the duels themselves even if Johan knows that as a kid he had wished to be at the center of that stage, but more longing for an old dream he had during simpler times.

Well, if Judai's life could ever have been called simple. Johan knows better than anyone that no kid who can talk with spirits has a simple childhood and between his parents and that Yubel affair, he suspects Judai had it even more complicated than he did.

But he doesn't see longing in the brown eye he's not hiding. It's sparkling with joy and wonder, but mostly he seems proud. Shou and Ryou had been working for hours, everyday, ever since Shou's last days at Duel Academia, to get there. And they did it. It was a monumental task, not helped by Ryou's terrible health and the reputation they had to transform.

When they finally get to see the men of the hour, Ryou is sitting down and Fubuki and Asuka are making sure the people around here are not overwhelming him. Johan thinks about asking the man how the movie he's in is doing, but he'd also like to stay near both of his companions and he knows that even if Yubel just might follow him, Judai is looking for Shou.

The little man seems to have escaped the room, which is surprising. Contrary to Judai who didn't care about it, Shou had always seemed to enjoy being the center of attention. Especially when it was to praise him. Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to be complimented on your accomplishments, but it makes his disappearance all the weirder.

They find him in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror. His face is flushed and he's breathing heavily. There's one thing in his eyes that Johan doesn't remember seeing there in a long time.

Doubt.

Johan looks at Judai in what he hopes is not an invitation to talk to him. The last time he saw Shou looking for advice, Johan was surprised at how little Judai had actually managed to help him, but he didn't know about the years of helping Shou facing his problems they had behind. There had to be a moment where it didn't work out. He's pretty sure everyone else knew that Judai wasn't an eternal fountain of wisdom after all.

He sometimes still thinks about how he told Judai he could have done more at the time. Judai had seemed pretty careless while answering that Shou would be able to find his own answer, but he was right. And even if he would probably not admit it, and perhaps he didn't even realize it at the time, maybe Judai was tired to have to solve every problem his friend ever had.

So Johan doesn't want to tell Judai to go quell Shou's doubts. Shou is an adult, now, an adult who just created a new Cyber league through pure will and stubbornness. It's not Judai's job to tell him he’s great.

But it's a friend's job to be moral support. So Judai goes anyway, as Johan knew he would.

Imposter syndrome is a classic thing to happen to people who are not used to success. It's not that much an issue to solve, it's more of Shou being lost and Judai reminding him of all he did and all he accomplished. Johan is here because he wants to be, but he wonders if he should leave them be. He's trying to show support too, Shou is his friend. But Judai's support will always mean more to the person who saw him as some kind of god for so long.

Shou looks at Judai and there's emotion here, but also the ugly head of insecurities, insecurities that Shou never knew how to hide in front of his friend.

"But you deserve it more, aniki."

Maybe the crux of the problem is here, inside the heads of all those who love Judai Yuki but suffer from never being able to defeat him. Maybe it's hard to see the best duellist Duel Academia ever had and to know that he'll never have the glory you do.

Maybe it's harder to see the soft resignation on Judai's youthful face when he smiles kindly and says:

"No, Shou. I don't."

Maybe it's hard to accept that someone's dream can change. Maybe it's hard to see someone who is stronger than anyone else you know never get the recognition you feel you yourself don't deserve but still recieve. Maybe it's even harder to know that the same insecurities dance in his eyes and that he feels he could never deserve any praise.

Judai loves his friends and his friends love him, but Johan has the feeling none of them realize how much he despises himself most days. And maybe one day it could change, but for now, the spotlight and the flames of glory would burn him more than anything.

Jim catches them when they leave, and they didn’t know he was here but his mere presence already makes the sun feel warmer and the world more colourful. They get weird looks when they sit outside a café, what with Karen and all, but it’s easy to forget about them when Jim is just smiling at them and asking about how they are doing. Yes, he was indeed here because he wanted to watch some of the league’s match-ups, no he didn’t know where they were thanks to O’Brien. Yes, he knows O’Brien has the tendency to know where everyone is at all times, but he doesn’t really care, it mostly means he gets to see his dear friend more often.

It’s sweet and it’s fun and it’s, as always when they spend time with him, one of the best times they had in the last months. They do talk to him about some of the horrors they saw, even if they don’t go into as much details as they do with Ryou, it’s still enough for Jim to embrace them firmly.

He gives great hugs, Judai sighs dreamily afterwards and Johan chokes and Yubel cackles and there’s a small accusation thrown his way that sounds like ‘I thought you said you didn’t remember’ and Judai’s eyes are confused, but mostly, no, he doesn’t remember. Yubel told him everything, though, and his brain works far too much at night.

The conversation goes towards lighter subjects afterwards. Johan shows off some of his creations with no shame, admitting that he’s still a beginner, but that it doesn’t mean he can’t be proud of what he accomplished. Jim is proud. Jim also basically drags them back to their hotel so he can hear Judai playing, despite self-conscious blabbering about how he’s not that good right now, it’s only been a few months. Jim asserts with certainty that he will love what he plays anyway.

He does.

Jim might be the hardest one to show the eye to. It was hard to show it to Asuka or Ryou, and when he talked about it with Shou, they both agreed that it might be best if Judai didn’t show him. Telling him was enough, even though Shou admitted that more than Dark World, they would remind him of the duel against Yubel. Of the time he thought for a week that they had all lost him.

They didn’t have a choice with O’Brien and he took it in stride, as he does almost everything. But Jim is the hardest trial, because Jim died. Jim did everything right, everything that he could, but he died anyway and he did so for nothing. Judai still wakes up in sweat, whimpering Jim’s name in horror sometimes, just remembering that he did that to his friend, and that he did it without looking back.

Jim looks at the eye for one second and hugs him again.

"My poor Special Boy," he mumbles against his hair, "you've been hurt again."

And of course the wonderful, amazing human being would see that part rather than be reminded of his own hurt. Because that's Jim for you, never stopping to think about himself, too worried about everyone else.

There's only Jim, really, to see the golden eye as a call for help and the wounded reaction it is, rather than as a relic of memories they'd rather all forget about.

Their next mission case is given to them by Saiou.

That was not something they expected, because they were pretty sure with how diminished Saiou's powers were now, he would not have been involved in any magical endeavour.

But destiny still finds a way it seems and it's another grown man they have to help, a 40 something years old who only very recently realized that some of the monsters he drew could become real under duress.

And he drew fearsome monsters.

So Johan teaches him calming exercises while Judai hunts for the monsters, taming them more than fighting them. When all the dangerous ones are dealt with and calmer, they focus on trying to make the man get them back into their drawings. But there's an issue they aren't used to face, with their usual demographics being more children and teenagers.

Listening to a young man like Johan, who is barely pushing twenty one, is already something the man didn't really like.

Judai, with his youthful face and small size still looks like a teenager to him and there's no way a prideful adult is listening to a teenager for anything. Judai and Johan both feel his anger everytime Judai talks. It doesn't matter that he's the closest they have to an expert in this situation, that he's been doing that for almost four years now, it only matters that a child cannot teach anything to an adult, obviously.

Judai is very calm when he uses Yubel’s eyes. Even calmer when he sweetly tells the man that he would see no issue letting him deal with his own mistakes if it didn't put other people in danger. He's serene like a spring breeze when he starts talking to one of the monsters like one talks to a disobedient puppy and suddenly, after a conversation that looks one-sided, but definitely wasn't, there's a mass of energy, concentrating slowly, and poof. The monster disappears. Johan looks at him in wonder, eyes full of curiosity.

"I sent him to another dimension," Judai says simply, "if he spends enough time here, he could turn into a spirit and get some friends."

He turns towards the man.

"I can send you there too, if you become too dangerous. At least, the monsters you'll create will be among friends in a place used to them, instead of wrecking havoc here."

The man turns pale and never questions him again. Johan probably shouldn't love it so much when his lover shows how scary he can be, but as some little voices that sound suspiciously like Yubel's or Amethyst's say: the dude was being an asshole anyway.

When they get to tell Saiou that they're done, but that he should still make sure the guy doesn't cause trouble, probably warn Kaiba and O'Brien about him just in case, they're welcomed with a sigh. Saiou has always been pretty young for the positions he held, so it makes sense he would have been a target of the self-entitlement this man seemed to have. He does not comment, instead smiling politely and asking, in a soft voice, how Edo is doing.

They've always been close friends, and even if they agreed to spend time away from each other after the Light of Destruction's disappearance, it's been strangely hard for them to stay in touch. It's hard and they suspect Saiou working for Darkness might have made Edo angry. He's too proud to admit that he's hurt, maybe too hurt to admit that he wonders if Saiou would have fallen again if he were by his side.

Edo is fine, they tell him. He has made close friends who support him. The Marufuji Cyber-league is about to complete its first tournament, so Edo won't be there for long. But if he really wants to make it up to his old friend, Saiou needs to take the first step.

The man nods and thanks them again. They don't know if he'll listen to what they said, but at least they've done all they can.

"Your boss will never allow this."

Yubel knows they're right, Johan knows they're right, Judai knows they're right, hell, even Hayato knew this before they said it. The designer looks at them with a challenging sparkle in the eye.

"I know," he admits out loud, "but I thought that would be beautiful and the idea wouldn't leave me. So I had to draw it."

"These are absolutely wonderful," Judai is gushing, looking at the pretty artwork, "look how gorgeous you are on them, Yubel!"

Yubel has to admit that the way they're drawn on the pictures is flattering, wings deployed in a demonstration of strength or tuck back with humility. 'Guardian of the King', one of the magic cards read, 'Lover of the King' is the name on the other one, a Trap card this time.

"What would be their effects?" Johan asks with fascination.

Hayato laughs, more embarrassed than he likes to admit.

"I didn't go that far, I usually stop at the concept art. Most of the time, I'm actually given the description of the card and then I have to suggest an illustration."

"It's true that there is no support for Yubel's cards," Judai mumbles thoughtfully, "I never really thought about it, since they don't duel with me much. But it must be hard for you when you duel on your own."

It's been a local sport, recently, for their friends to duel Yubel, a honour that used to be Judai's only (and pretty soon Johan's, but they tend to avoid, they can become far too competitive with each other). They reason that a duel spirit can't use any tricks when it's a simple table duel with no solid vision. Somehow Yubel is still undefeated. Ryou might change that soon if they don't find a way to update Yubel's deck pretty soon. And Yubel is competitive. And Johan even more so and he roots for them, so they really need to find a way.

"These probably won't be approved support cards," Hayato admits, "though you might be able to have Kaiba approve of them if you win another contest."

There's some chiding in his voice as he's saying that, but it's fond. Judai hides his head in his hands.

"Come on," he whines, "I didn't know you participated to the same contest I did, how would have I known to mention it?"

"You knew I was into card artwork," Hayato retorts, "you have no idea how happy I would have been to know I had a fellow artist in my friends group!"

"You mostly would have been disappointed to learn that I stopped after that contest."

"You're damn right I would have been. I would also have made you start drawing again because that's a waste. But enough about this, I won't ask you why you stopped, something tells me it has to do with bad memories."

Judai's wince is thankful and Yubel and Johan exchange a look, silently agreeing to find out if they can help their lover find fun in drawing again.

"Anyway, these cards won't help Yubel, they're mostly here as a gift. Even though you're welcome to suggest them to Kaiba. He forces us to print new Blue Eyes support cards that only he can use every two months after all. But I might have another idea for Yubel!"

Yubel can feel their interest being piqued again and they lean in, almost shivering in anticipation.

"Have you heard about the Fire King archetype? We launched it not too long ago and I know you're busy so you might not have. I think the synergy with Yubel would be great."

Hayato is absolutely right. Yubel can't wait to win against their loved ones' friends again.

None of them expected to see the sky dragon of Osiris again, especially so soon. When Judai first woke up after the bullet, the god apparently told him that as much as the 'little king' was interesting, he wanted to travel a little bit alone, looking for a new shrine by himself.

But it's been only a few months and the dragon comes to them, appearing as that red mist he affectionates so deeply. Johan didn't see him at first, it was only Judai's surprised shout that alerted him to something weird. When he sees Judai, stopped in the middle of the road they were walking on, eyes glowing orange and green, and looking in shock at something Johan can barely perceive, he understands.

The dragon's voice is rumbling, and kind and Johan isn't as good at hearing as he is at seeing, but somehow, he hears it.

"I hope I'm not intruding, little king." he says.

When a god talks to you, you answer. So Judai nods quickly, though with less awe and fear than one would expect. Johan guesses that with the time the dragon spent in their presence, that can make one less respectful, but it's still a little shocking to him that they had an actual Egyptian god watching them as they spent their daily lives.

Suddenly, the red mist that seemed to always surround Judai disappearing when they cuddled or, well, anytime Judai had a bad day, seemed like an embarrassing blessing instead of a mystery.

Johan listens intently. The god isn't speaking as much as exchanging feelings. Judai smiles.

"Were you feeling lonely?"

That's not something you ask a god. Not that Judai has ever cared. It does make sense, in a way.

There's a rumbling sound, like laughter, and the mist rises, turning around them like a warm snake embracing them slowly before releasing them.

There's a feeling too, something Johan can feel deep into his core, as if it was him Osiris was talking to and not Judai.

_"Do not endanger yourself by summoning me ever again, little king. I would not see you wounded if I can avoid it."_

Johan hears Yubel snark something, but he's too overwhelmed to process what. He can feel the god, staring inside his soul and a power surges through him.

A shocked gasp escapes his lips and he bends over. Judai makes a startled noise and runs up to him, helping him up.

"Johan? Johan, what's wrong?"

Nothing. Nothing is wrong.

He feels wonderful. He feels better than ever.

He smiles at Judai in reassurance, but there are tears in his eyes.

"Nothing... Just... Surprised I guess."

He can see that Judai doubts his answer, which is fair. But he trusts him and doesn't insist. He gives a look at Osiris, but the god is happily snuggled against them and now Johan sees him perfectly. He looks like the picture of innocence and technically speaking, he probably didn't do anything bad to Johan.

But he did do something to him. Johan simply isn't sure what. He just knows he feels greater and stronger than he's ever been.

Everytime they go into a dangerous zone, the main question the three of them ask themselves is: "what do we do with Pharaoh?"

The cat has some ungodly ability to get himself out of danger, but they don't want to leave anything to chance, so they usually check to see which ones of their friends are available and won't move for a while. Asuka is often a godsend thanks to her big apartment and her studies, but she's due to a trip soon, so she's out for this. The pros spend most of their lives in hotel suites that won't let you bring a pet, most of their other friends are travellers... It's an actual problem that none of them expected to have and they won't subject Daitokuji's ghost to staying alone in their small house, hoping that the smart cat is smart enough to feed himself.

It's Yubel who finds the solution, even if by absolute chance.

"I mean, the pest spent years almost on his own on that damned island, can't you just bring him back there?"

Which mostly meant that Pharaoh probably nibbed on one of their books recently, but Judai freezes and the way he mentally starts to berate himself surprises Yubel with how intensive it is.

"Our teachers!" he exclaims in dismay. "I've wanted to visit them for a while and I haven't!"

Johan barely looks up from where he's preparing tonight's dinner.

"Something wrong, love?"

"I'm an ungrateful student who only ever thinks about his teachers when he has a favor to ask is what's wrong!"

That gets Johan worried, of course, so Yubel chuckles and makes sure tu reassure him.

"I'm sure your old teachers will understand that you've had some eventful years. And you've gone to see them during the twerp's last year, it wasn't that long ago."

It was true, he did assist to Rei's graduation duel and so had the opportunity to talk to the adults who were the most important in his life for three years.

Which probably isn't that good seeing as, no matter how much he loves them, they were mostly very bad at keeping the kids in their care safe.

With a sigh, Judai bends down and takes Pharaoh's paws so the cat has no choice but to look at him.

"So I guess you're going to spend some time with uncle Cronos? Should I warn him about the haunting that comes with it?"

He can hear Daitokuji's soul laughing. Johan hums in agreement.

"The teachers shouldn't leave the island for months and even then, the staff can take care of him. They've probably missed him."

"I hope they don't believe you stole him," Yubel mutters.

"I'm pretty sure they know I didn't. Pharaoh goes wherever the hell he wants."

The cat meows in agreement. Judai really needs to know how the teacher's cat became so smart, but he's not sure he wants the answer. So he simplys smiles at him.

"Professor Cronos it is, then."

The reunion is full of tears. Judai wishes he could be embarrassed by how happy his old teacher is to see him, his precious dropout boy as he calls him, but he mostly feels warm. And he might be tearing up a bit too. The genuine fondness, from someone who used to hate his guts, is a gift and a reminder that maybe, just maybe, he's not unlovable despite what his awful brain likes to tell him some days.

"Why is that bed so big?" Johan mumbles, nose deep inside the gigantic bed Kenzan gave them for the night. "Why does he need such a big one to sleep?"

"A dinosaur-sized bed for a dinosaur-sized man," Judai laughs, "maybe it's to keep space for his duel spirits."

"It's not often that you meet someone as concerned with their spirits," Yubel mumbles in the soft material, "especially someone who doesn't even see them."

"Well Kenzan is like that," Judai smiles, "it's not exactly a surprise."

"And it's big enough for all three of us." Yubel adds happily.

Johan smirks and looks at them.

"There are things that could be done in a bed that big."

"Johan," Judai says in an aggravated voice, "you better not be suggesting what I think you're suggesting in my friend's bed."

"What? Ours is a little small for kinky play!"

"There are some nice bondage opportunities on that one." Yubel adds with a smirk.

Judai falls down on the bed, dramatically sighing.

"Osiris help me, my lover has corrupted my other lover."

Osiris doesn’t answer, thankfully.

"I don't even know who corrupted who to be honest," Johan jokes before hugging him, "you were always the pure one."

There's a groan and Yubel starts laughing softly, joined by Johan pretty soon after.

"You do know we're joking I hope."

"Of course I do," Judai sighs before smiling with false innocence, "but if you two want to have fun together, you can. Just keep it out of Kenzan's bed."

Johan chokes and Yubel is laughing hard. So that's of course the moment Kenzan chooses to enter the room and look at them suspiciously.

"Boss, what did you say to put Johan in that state?"

Judai smothers a curse on his arm because of course it's his fault when the other two just conspired to embarrass him, but he shakes his head with a smile and sits down.

"Nothing important, just a joke that went a little far. Can we help you?"

"I wanted to ask if the bed was big enough for three or if you wanted the guest room too. I can sleep on the couch if some of you don't want to sleep together."

It's innocent, clearly, but Kenzan doesn't realize what he just said and Yubel doubles down laughing, shaking so hard they almost fall from the bed. Johan chokes again and his head falls on Judai's lap, hoping that it will hide his face.

They haven't slept in almost 50 hours because of their last spirit saving case, that’s the only reason any of it is that funny. Still, Johan feels drunk with joy and laughter.

He wants to kiss Judai silly and wonders how Kenzan would react. He wonders if anyone know about the three of them other than Daitokuji. He wonders how they would react if they knew Yubel and Johan like to joke about BDSM to make Judai blush. He wonders how they'd react knowing they have a small routine on mondays, where Judai goes to his music lessons and Johan and Yubel duel before starting to cook together. Then when Judai comes home, they eat and Yubel talks about the last book they read, then Johan mentions some clothes he'd like to try making that would suit either of his companions perfectly and they gush at it and he will add it to the very long list of things he plans to make the moment he's good enough. Afterwards, if the weather is good, they take a walk, buy whatever they need to make food for the rest of the week. They hold hands a lot, all three of them. They've been looking to make Yubel appear as they once did as a human and they're getting better. Then during the evening, Judai will practice and Johan will pretend he's not listening, instead working on something or another, while Yubel sighs dreamily at both of them. And then, maybe they would dance, mostly Johan and Judai, sometimes Yubel and Judai, never Yubel and Johan because they collectively have three and a half left feet.

He wonders how their friends would react to the fact that all three of them are in love and that Johan got some kind of blessing from a god.

He wonders how Judai will react when he tells him he finally figured out what blessing Osiris gave him.

But it's night and he's tired and he wants to sleep with Judai and Yubel in the most innocent of ways. So all he does is stand up, help Judai thank Kenzan for being an amazing friend, as always, and congratulate him on his close bond with his spirits, as always. It's only once the door closes that he tenderly puts his lips on his divine lover's, wishing for this night to be kind to both him and the beautiful spirit still laughing like a madperson behind them.

"Wait," Rei says slowly, squinting, "you guys are together?"

Johan stops sipping his tea and looks at her with surprise. He's sitting in her family's couch. Since she graduated far too young from DA, she has no idea what she wishes to do now, which is honestly not surprising. So she's back at her home, looking at high school brochures and wondering if they'd accept her at one of the other DA branches even with her diploma. Johan had promised to help her, thanks to his experience with North DA, but the question seemingly comes out of nowhere.

"Yes," he answers truthfully, "but why that question? Weren't you asking about the curriculum I had?"

"Yeah, but you mentioned that Judai would have loved the glacier! You know? The one dating spot in the school? And wait, so you two ARE together?"

"Yeah, I just said so. But it's not just a dating spot, it's a good place to be lazy on, there are fishes, he would have loved it, that's it."

Rei groans and lays her head on the table, navy hair spilling over her shoulders. Her teenage body is starting to grow into its own and she's awkward and lanky, but somehow, he feels that she's going to grow taller than him.

"How did Yubel take it? I mean, it took me a while to get over the fact that they got married to my idea of the perfect man, but now I learn that he's dating YOU instead?"

Johan laughs.

"We have an arrangement," he says, "and how did you know that Yubel and Judai were married?"

"I was being a creepy stalker and I heard them talk to each other. Well, I didn't hear Yubel, but I heard Judai and I got the gist of it."

"Heartbroken?"

"Perhaps a bit, but at the same time, come on, how awesome is it to say that your first love married a dragon and have it not be an exaggeration?"

"I thought Kaiser was your first love?"

"He was a dumb childhood crush I was obsessed with, like a celebrity crush if you will!"

"And Judai wasn't!"

"No he wasn't, I fell in love during a duel where our hearts... Are you intentionally being mean to me, right now?"

Johan can't help but laugh again and ruffles her hair. She pouts, fake anger all over her face.

"Maybe a little," he admits, "you're fun to tease. But you are over my lover, I hope? I thought you liked Martin?"

Rei groans again, but her eyes sparkle in challenge.

"Yes, I managed to get over a boy who clearly doesn't like girls, as hard as it was. Good thing for me too. But the day Martin even starts to realize that something between us is possible is the day I'll change my entire deck."

"Oh, well, it's never too late to change."

"... You ARE being mean to me."

Johan laughs for the third time. Judai enters the room to see Rei fake trying to strangle him. Johan can hear Yubel say he deserves it and he shouts in fake indignation.

"Yubel! Johan is mean to me! Tell Judai he needs to punish him!"

"Judai, punish your boyfriend," Yubel answers automatically.

"So when you two are being mean to me, you're conspirators, but when Johan is being mean to a little girl, suddenly he's just my boyfriend? Oh, I see how it is."

Johan stands up and embraces his boyfriend teasingly.

"I've been mean to our youngest friend, will you punish me, love?"

"Gross," Judai smirks before using his finger to push his face away, "did you two cover everything you wanted? Or was Johan too much of a bad influence?"

Johan smiles and turns to Rei, serious again. He is there for a reason after all.

Rei looks at them with a soft look and shakes her head slowly.

"Oh my god, you guys are so domestic it's almost terrible. Please keep acting as if I wasn't here."

"No can do, princess," Yubel hums before petting the young girl's hair, "I'm afraid you'd lose every faith you ever had in us. We can act pretty stupid when it's only the three of us."

Or become really really depressed, which can't be fun either, especially for a teen definitely unused to people who aren't mentally fine. So Johan lets Judai go, simply interlacing their fingers and smiles at her.

"Anything else you want to know about North DA, Rei?"

She shakes her head and suddenly jumps into Judai's arms, forcing him to let go of Johan's hand to catch her in surprise. She lets out a victorious exclamation.

"Knew it!" She says while letting herself slide down on the floor. "You're still my hero. You're so awesome, love! I'm fine here, so you can go, I'll tell you when I've decided."

She winks.

"Also, whenever you guys have kids, I want to be the godmother so hit me up!"

And then she's gone again, scampering in the kitchen and leaving them in front of the door, to let themselves out. Judai looks at Johan, his eyes still confused.

"What the hell just happened."

Johan shrugs.

"She got over you," he simply says, "that's good news, isn't it?"

"Osiris be damned," Yubel chuckles, "I want to adopt that girl."

The house is gigantic, beautiful, and clearly belongs to someone who never knew that money could ever be an issue. It's honestly pretty hard to picture a wandering spirit counselor going through its porch, keys in hand. Johan looks at Judai, hopefully hiding his surprise. Even with what he said about his parents, he somehow forgot what it implied about the place they were about to go to.

Judai is shuffling nervously with the key. He looks at it without seeing it, probably lost in some kind of doubt that should be silly after all they've been through. But it's the kind of doubt that shapes you as a person, so it makes sense that even now, the Supreme King of Darkness is afraid of getting hurt by an empty house full of bad memories.

"We don't have to do this, you know?" Johan says softly.

Judai shakes his head.

"I think I just... need this? I need to choose what I do with my past, in a way. Or I need to know if it's impossible either way."

The doubt is killing him. It's some kind of closure he needs, one way or another.

Johan puts his hands on Judai's, smiling.

"OK, let's breathe a little. What is the worst case scenario?"

"... She's home, but gets angry at seeing us and wants us to leave?"

"Unlikely, don't you think? She already welcomed you last time. Her ignoring us would be more likely."

That might hurt worse, though, but Judai shrugs.

"Honestly, that might be the best case scenario. We don't know how to act with each other, it would make everything awkward."

Johan nods, a humming noise in his throat, soothing.

"What if she welcomes us with apologies and a desire to try again?"

"I might run away screaming." Judai answers honestly.

He sees Johan's face and his nose scrunches up.

"What? I thought we already established that I'm bad at feelings."

"If she sincerely wants to be part of your life, won't you listen to her?" He asks softly. "I'm not saying you should forgive her, but listening could give you closure."

"What is there to forgive?" Judai asks, confusion clear in his voice. "It's not as if she abused me. We just drifted apart because life happened and now we're basically strangers who used to share a family name. That's all."

That's all if you forget the hurt, the neglect, the fact that a little kid spent so much time watching a chick flick as substitution when he couldn't get his mother in the flesh. Neglect is some form of abuse, one Johan promises himself to talk about to his boyfriend.

Yubel is terribly silent, but they're present, a translucid hand firmly clawing on Judai's shoulder. Unwavering support in the face of adversity.

Johan stays silent for now and simply adds a bit of pressure on Judai's hand.

"And what if the lock has been changed?"

Judai sighs, shaking, proof that there are a lot more feelings there than he wants to admit.

"Then... I guess it's a closed door forever."

Resignation. Another form of closure. Johan believes Judai when he says he doesn't even know which one he'd like better. It's uncertainty that is killing him, doubts, not knowing. Finding a closed door would at least tell him that it's a path he can no longer take, it'd make moving on the obvious choice. Finding it open, with a mother ready to take responsibilities would be frightening and unknown, but a new page in their lives that could hide great possibilities.

"So I guess the worst possibility isn't that bad," Johan smiles, "let's try that key, alright? At least you'll have your answer, one way or another."

A small, grateful smile is his answer and it's beautiful, Johan would kiss him here and now if he wasn't busy trying to paint it forever in his mind. His hand still in Johan's, Judai moves the key towards the door.

He puts it inside the keyhole and twists.

There aren't many humans Yubel respects as much as they respect O'Brien. It might have to do with the no-nonsense mercenary part, or with the 'sacrificed himself to save Yubel's lover' part, or maybe simply with the 'able to deal with their shenanigans despite having no connection to spirits whatsoever' part. Or maybe it's all of it, because each part deserves respect.

While they have stayed in touch with friends and other non-nuisances, O'Brien simply imposed his presence in their lives with no effort, just asking for help anytime he figured they could do something. Half of Judai's cases had to do with him, even before Johan came in and started to pitch in. O'Brien has been the one constant in their life for a few years, now, giving them purpose and help and company and never asking for recognition.

None of Yubel's companion talk about it, but they've all accepted it by this point: O'Brien is their closest friend and greatest ally, the only one who can fathom what they go through.

So that explains, probably, why they all agree that if there's one person they should talk about their plans to go to Dark World, it's him.

Yubel tries to act pragmatic and no-nonsense, pretending it's mostly because they don't want him to look for them and panic and think them dead. Johan coughs and calls them a tsundere under his breath and Yubel bristles, but there's not time for petty arguing for O'Brien.

The man turns to Judai, stone-faced, and asks only a few words.

"Will you be able to handle it?"

And Judai hesitates and shrugs.

"I don't want to pretend that I know I can, I have honestly no idea. But... I think it's a beginning. If I can handle it, if I can try to help..."

Then I'll be able to atone.

He doesn't say it out loud but Yubel hears it all the same. Judai has never seeked redemption, but atonement? He craves it like one craves a drug, because righting the wrongs he did is the only thing that makes sense every day, no matter how dark they are. Just knowing that he might be able to do something right, to fix what he broke, is enough to keep him going even when his bad, bad brain tells him otherwise.

Yubel doesn't even know if it's selfish or if it's selfless. Perhaps a bit of both. Judai doesn't feel better when he fixes his mistakes, but he feels worse when he doesn't. Most of the time, he just tries to live with the scars.

Johan kisses Judai's neck, momentarily distracting him with an inelegant squawk of surprise, and the moment is gone with the gloom. Yubel snorts and O'Brien nods, amusement barely visible in his eyes.

"Well then we should start thinking about how to get you to Misawa. It'd probably be a lot better if you could start somewhere someone actually knows you and will help."

Judai's eyes widen.

"Wait, 'we'?"

"I'm not going back there if I can help it, but I am not leaving you to your own devices. You'd only hurt yourselves. So how did you intend to go through dimensions? Rainbow Dragon? Or does this have to do with how Judai seems to teleport at times?"

Yubel smirks and looks at their lover.

 _"Oh, love, want to explain shadow travel to him?_ "

"Is this the moment you admit that you microchipped me?" Judai asks instead.

"Ah!" Johan exclaims. "So I'm not the only one who feels like that?"

O'Brien squints for one second, frowning in confusion.

"Did the two of you forget that your phones have a GPS?"

The two boys become so bashful in embarrassment that Yubel decides not to remind them of all the times O'Brien found them despite them forgetting their phones somewhere or another, or the fact that they rarely if ever have reception where they go.

Their faces when they realize it will be priceless after all.

It's not that any of them is particularly technologically challenged, but they're still pretty sure that connecting a phone through another dimension is not possible without a heavy dose of magic. So of course, that's what Misawa does within a fortnight of being told that they'd like to go and see him.

It's sometimes hard to be impressed by something you don't understand, but Judai and Johan have the distinct feeling that their friend is far too smart for the world at large and that they really need to tell him that.

"Is that this 'galaxy brain' meme the kids talk about on the internet?" Yubel asks when Judai tries to use the brand new number and successfully contacts Dark World through it. They'd talked, sometimes, through Dr Zweinstein's complicated contact machines, but it was a long process. First you had to set up the thingies until they made a bigger thingy that you couldn't move anymore, then you had to use it to get through the dimensions by finding the areas where the distance was the thinnest, there was a calibration phase, and so on.

Now, using that number would basically be like using a walkie talkie, but with better sound quality.

"This is absolutely phenomenal." Johan mumbles. "I have also no idea how it works."

"Do you think Misawa developed magic powers since we last talked to him?" Judai adds, dumbfounded.

"I hope not, he'd be far too powerful."

Yubel snorts and combs their fingers through his hair.

"Alright, twinkle light, love, are the two of you ready?"

"Depends, does our godly friend want to come with us? We still need to figure that out."

"Oh I hope so," Yubel laughs fondly, "I want to see the locals' face when we come in with a big scary dragon flying through the air."

"Even if he doesn't come," Johan adds joyously, "you seem to forget that you are a big scary dragon, we could still do that."

"Heh, it's not the same."

"Guys," Judai interrupts - thought his eyes are sparkling with amusement, "we're not here to scare anyone. If anything, it'd be better to stay inconspicuous as long as possible."

"Love," Yubel says sincerely, "I think you know pretty well that none of us has the capacity to do just that."

"We can still try!"

Johan hugs him with his right arm.

"Yes, yes, we'll try. But if the sky dragon comes with us, that plan is doomed, so does he want to come with us?"

Judai snorts, not as disappointed as he’s pretending to be.

"He does."

And Johan, who knew it from the beginning, just smiles and thinks of forever.

"Well then let's warn Misawa before coming, don't you think?"

"If we make the most brilliant brain of our generation have a heart attack, I'm blaming the two of you."

"Please!" Yubel exclaims in fake outrage. "I've been nothing but good and gracious!"

"Sure you've been," Judai answers fondly.

"I love you," He adds one second later.

Yubel hugs him.

"Love you too."

Johan doesn't take long to add himself to the hug. Osiris hums in his ear and Johan think that yes, this is it. This is the place where he wants to be. Forever if necessary. A forever that he starts to realize might be possible. Because forever is a long time to be alone. And that's a fate he doesn't wish for them.

"And I love the both of you," he mumbles in Yubel's shoulder, "now should we go? I don't think we want to make Misawa wait for too long."

Judai nods. And smiles. And it feels like the sun after a cold night. Yubel curls their hand on his shoulder and it's like a nice, protective armor that cannot be broken.

So Johan smiles too.

And Judai inhales, both eyes uncovered and brown, only shining gold for a brief second.

When they arrive in Dark World, they will feel brave and they will feel solemn, but, with their arms around each other, they will walk. Together.

Judai will flinch in front of places he'll remember, and Yubel will wince when they see the damage they did. Johan knows it won't be easy for them, or for him.

But he also knows that they are bigger and stronger that they used to be and, more than anything, that they don't have to go through it alone.

Mostly, he knows that as long as the three of them bear it together, it won't be impossible for them to carry that burden, the plague of their lives, so full of guilt and death and broken hearts.

So they look at each other, with love and trust and honest dread and trepidation, but when it's time to walk to the stage of their worst nightmares, they do so with no hesitation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to all those who read, kudoed and/or commented!  
> I wanted to give some kind of closure to everything I introduced earlier (I did miss one thing I believe, because I couldn't write a scene that felt satisfying to me). However, there are a few things where I also decided to leave it to interpretation because I felt it was better this way.  
> Having these three dorks all fall together was fun despite all the dark parts of the story and I'm happy I managed to have them at the point they're at at the end!  
> Once again, thank you for your support! I hope you guys enjoyed the story, whether it was the dark parts or the dumb parts!


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